Telangana High Court
The State Of A.P., vs P.Balaguruva Reddy And 5 Others on 1 August, 2024
1
THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE K.SURENDER
AND
THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE J. ANIL KUMAR
CRIMINAL APPEAL No.707 OF 2015
JUDGMENT:
(per Hon'ble Sri Justice K.Surender)
1. The State is aggrieved by the order of acquittal of the
respondents/accused for the offences under Sections 302,
498-A of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition
Act.
2. Heard Sri Jithender Rao Veeramalla, learned
Additional Public Prosecutor for appellant-State and the
learned counsel for the respondents.
3. Briefly, the case of the prosecution is that on
19.04.2008, A-1 was married to deceased and at the time
of marriage dowry of Rs.1,75,000/-was given. Thereafter,
all the accused/A-1 to A-6 started harassing her for
additional dowry. A-1 threatened that he would marry
another girl, if the demand was not met. Thereafter, an
amount of Rs.20,000/- was given twice. However, the
accused were not satisfied with the amount that was
provided by P.W.1/father of the deceased and continued to
harass her.
4. On the date of incident, P.W.1 and others went to
Balaji Hospital and found that the deceased was dead and
there was head injury, ligature to the neck and blood
oozing from the head. Having seen the deceased, P.W.1
filed a complaint before the Police. The Police registered
the case for the offences under Sections 498-A and 302 of
IPC. Having concluded the investigation, charge sheet was
filed for offences under Sections 498-A and 302 of IPC and
Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act,
5. Learned Sessions Judge framed charges for the said
offences and having examined the material witnesses P.W.1
to P.W.11 and also on the basis of Exs.P.1 to P.7 found
that the prosecution has failed to prove the case of
culpable homicide amounting to murder. In fact, the
evidence of Doctor/P.W.9 clearly indicates that the death
was on account of suicide. P.W.9 stated in his chief
examination that the cause of death as asphyxia due to
hanging and suicide. The said witness was not treated
hostile to the prosecution case. Further, the material
witness/P.W.4 who is the Watchman of the Apartment
stated that the deceased died three years prior to his
evidence and it was A-1 and two others who were carrying
the deceased to Balaji hospital.
6. Learned Public Prosecutor laid emphasis on the
evidence of P.W.4 stating that he saw A-1 and two others
taking the body of the deceased to the hospital which
clearly indicates the complicity of the accused.
Alternatively, learned Public Prosecutor submits that it is
the case under Section 306 of IPC and this Court in appeal
has to hear the arguments under Section 306 of IPC, which
is punishable under Section 216 of Cr.P.C.
7. With due respect to the learned Public Prosecutor,
there is no provision of framing a charge by the appellate
Court under Section 216 of Cr.P.C, when the trial Court
had already found that there was no offence under Section
302 of IPC. It is not the case of prosecution in the trial
Court that deceased committed suicide. No petition was
preferred by the prosecution in the trial Court to frame
charge under Section 306 of IPC. The prosecution cannot
project a new case during appeal arguments.
8. Further, in any case of acquittal, the Hon'ble
Supreme Court in Pulicherla Nagaraju alia Nagaraja
Reddy vs. State of A.P. 1 held that unless findings of the
Court below are perverse and are not based on record, the
question of interfering in the appeal does not arise. The
relevant portion of the order reads as under:-
"It is now well settled that the power of the High
Court in an appeal from acquittal is no different from its
power in an appeal from conviction. It can review and
consider the entire evidence and come to its own
conclusions by either accepting the evidence rejected by
the trial court or rejecting the evidence accepted by the
trial court. However, if the High Court decided to depart
from the conclusions reached by the trial court, it
should pay due attention to the grounds on which
acquittal was based and state the reasons as to why it
finds the conclusions leading to the acquittal,
unacceptable. It should also bear in mind that (i) the
presumption of innocence in favour of the accused is
fortified by the findings of the trial court; (ii) the accused
is entitled to benefit of any doubt; and (iii) the trial court
had the advantage of examining the demeanour of the
witnesses. The crux of the matter, however, is whether
the High Court is able to give clear reasons to dispel the
doubt raised, and reject the reasons given by the trial
court [See : Sher Singh vs. State of U.P. (AIR 1967 SC
1412); Dargahi vs. State of U.P. AIR 1973 SC 2695;
Ravinder Singh vs. State of Haryana (AIR 1975 SC 856);
and Labh Singh vs. Sate of Punjab (AIR 1976 SC 83)".
(2006)11 SCC 444
9. There are no grounds to interfere with the findings of
the trial Court. The State appeal fails and accordingly,
stands dismissed.
_________________
K.SURENDER, J
___________________
J. ANIL KUMAR, J
Date: 01.08.2024
dv
