Telangana High Court
The State Of A.P. Rep., By Its Pp vs Kotha Sammi Reddy on 25 July, 2024
THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.SURENDER
And
The HON'LE SRI JUSTICE J.SREENIVAS RAO
CRIMINAL APPEAL No.570 of 2015
JUDGMENT:
(per Hon'ble Sri Justice K.Surender)
1. The State aggrieved by the judgment of acquittal recorded by
the II Additional Sessions Judge at Warangal vide judgment in
S.C.No.379 of 2007 dated 29.05.2010 for the offence under Section
320 of IPC as against the respondent/accused, filed the present
appeal.
2. Briefly, the case of the prosecution is that the deceased
namely Sammakka is the daughter of P.W.2 and P.W.4. P.Ws.1 and
P.W.3 are brothers. The deceased was married to one Raghava
Reddy, who joined PWG and later died. The father of Raghava
Reddy distributed the land of Ac.1.20 guntas to the deceased. After
the death of the said Ragahva Reddy, elders asked the accused to
pay Rs.70,000/- to the deceased to take back the agricultural land.
However, he refused to pay the said amount to the deceased. There
was an altercation in between the deceased and the accused during
cultivation in the said land. The deceased was regularly going to the
fields and watering her fields. The accused wanted to grab the land
of the deceased and started giving troubles to her and planned to
kill her on 24.08.2006. On the said date, the deceased left from her
parents' house and went to the fields. She requested P.Ws.1 and 2
to come to their fields and help her in watering the fields. Around
9.00 p.m, the accused taking advantage of the deceased being
alone, picked up quarrel with her and hit on her head with spade
and also chopped the throat of the deceased.
3. On the basis of the complaint Ex.P1 filed by P.W.1, the police
took up investigation and filed charge sheet against the
respondent/accused for the offence under Section 302 IPC.
4. Learned Sessions Judge examined witnesses P.Ws.1 to 15 and
marked Exs.P1 to P17. On the basis of the evidence adduced during
trial, the learned Sessions Judge acquitted the accused on the
following grounds:
i) The residence of the deceased and place where the fields
were separated by nearly 4 to 5 kilometers and one has to go
through Choutuparthy village. However, P.W.1 did not choose to
inform the villagers of Choutuparthy village but went to his village
Cherlapally and informed his relatives about the incident. The said
conduct is unnatural.
ii) P.W.1 instead of informing the villagers of Choutuparthy
and see to that the accused was apprehended, straight away went
to his village. Such conduct creates doubt regarding P.W.1 being a
eye witness.
iii) P.W.2 was suffering from Elephantiasis to one of her legs
and it was not known as to how she walked all the way for 5 kms
from Cherlapally to Choutuparthy village to help the deceased.
iv) When P.W.1 was aware that there was no electricity till
11.00 O' clock, there was no necessity for P.W.1 to rush to the place
of incident by 9.00 O' clock.
v) First Information Report was registered at 3.00p.m the next
day. However, the postmortem examination report reflects that the
post mortem was completed at 3.30 p.m, which is highly
improbable.
vi) The postmortem examination report gives the time of death
as ten hours prior to the examination, that means, death would
have been happened in the early hours around 3.00 or 4.00 a.m.
However, P.Ws.1 & 2 stated that deceased was murdered at 9.00
p.m.
vii) From the circumstances, it appears that initially,
complaint was given in the morning. However, suppressing the said
complaint, another complaint was filed implicating the accused at
3.00 p.m. There is a delay of 18 hours in lodging complaint.
viii) Exs.P2 and P3 which are inquest panchanama and scene
of offence panchanama were surprisingly prepared after receiving
the dead body and the timing in both Exs.P2 and P3 were
manipulated.
ix) There is no possibility of P.Ws.1 and 2 viewing the alleged
attack and death of the deceased in the background of the
circumstances as discussed.
5. The evidence of P.W.10, who is one of the villagers and D.W.1
is that they saw the dead body of the deceased on the date of the
incident when they went to the agricultural well for sprinkling
pesticides and there was no one present near the dead body.
P.Ws.1 and 2, who are residing at Cherlapally, which is at a
distance of 4 or 5 kms were informed and they came there. The said
version of D.W.1 is probable.
6. In Ravi Sharma v. State (Government of NCT of Delhi) and
another1, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that while dealing with
an appeal against acquittal, the appellate court has to consider
whether the trial Court's view can be termed as a possible one,
particularly when evidence on record has been analysed. The
reason is that an order of acquittal adds up to the presumption of
innocence in favour of the accused. Thus, the appellate court has to
be relatively slow in reversing the order of the trial court rendering
acquittal.
7. In Ghurey Lal v. State of Uttar Pradesh 2 the Hon'ble
Supreme Court after referring to several Judgments regarding the
settled principles of law and the powers of appellate Court in
reversing the order of acquittal, held at para 70, as follows:
(2022) 8 Supreme Court Cases 536
(2008) 10 Supreme Court Cases 450
"70. In the light of the above, the High Court and other appellate
Courts should follow the well-settled principles crystallized by number
of Judgments if it is going to overrule or otherwise disturb the trial
court's acquittal:
1. The appellate court may only overrule or otherwise disturb the
trial court's acquittal if it has "very substantial and compelling reasons"
for doing so.
A number of instances arise in which the appellate court would
have "very substantial and compelling reasons" to discard the trial
court's decision. "Very substantial and compelling reasons" exist when:
i) The trial court's conclusion with regard to the facts is palpably
wrong:
ii) The trial court's decision was based on an erroneous view of
law;
iii) The trial court's judgment is likely to result in "grave
miscarriage of justice";
iv) The entire approach of the trial court in dealing with the
evidence was patently illegal;
v) The trial court's judgment was manifestly unjust and
unreasonable;
vi) The trial court has ignored the evidence or misread the material
evidence or has ignored material documents like dying
declarations/report of the ballistic expert, etc.
vii) This list is intended to be illustrative, not exhaustive.
2. The appellate court must always give proper weight and
consideration o the findings of the trial court.
If two reasonable views can be reached__ one that leads to acquittal, the
other to conviction __the High Courts/appellate courts must rule in favour of the
accused."
8. The reasons narrated above by the learned Sessions Judge
while recording acquittal are probable and reasonable. The
appellant Court in an order of acquittal can only interfere when it is
found that the conclusions drawn by the trial Court are either not
borne by the record or impossible conclusions to arrive at on the
basis of the evidence. There are no grounds to interfere with the
acquittal by the trial Court.
9. Criminal Appeal is dismissed.
__________________
K.SURENDER, J
_______________________
J.SREENIVAS RAO, J
Date : 25.07.2024
kvs
