1. The present appeal, under Section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, is directed against the judgment and order of acquittal dated 25.4.1995 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Mehsana, in Sessions Case No.38 of 1993, whereby the accused has been acquitted from the charges leveled against him.
2. The brief facts of the prosecution case are such that as per complaint lodged on 24.1.1992, the daughter of the complainant namely Vishnukunvarba was married with the accused No.1 before five years from the date of incident. The accused prevented the deceased to go at her parental house and caused mental and physical harassment to the deceased and the accused threatened the deceased to kill her. Therefore, the deceased consumed poison on 23.1.1992 and died. Therefore, the offence was registered against the accused under Sections 498(A) and 306 of the Indian Penal Code. Necessary investigation was carried out and statements of several witnesses were recorded. During the course of investigation, respondent was arrested and, ultimately, chargesheet was filed against him before the court of learned Judicial Magistrate First Class. Thereafter, as the case was exclusively triable by the Sessions Court, the same was committed to the Sessions Court, which was numbered as Sessions Case No.38 of 1993. The trial was initiated against the respondent accused.
2.1 To prove the case against the present accused, the prosecution has examined, in all 11 witnesses and also produced several documentary evidence.
2.3 At the end of trial, after recording the statement of the accused under section 313 of Cr.P.C., and hearing arguments on behalf of prosecution and the defence, the learned Sessions Judge acquitted the respondents of all the charges leveled against him by judgment and order dated 25.4.1995 .
3. Being aggrieved by and dissatisfied with the aforesaid judgment and order passed by the Sessions Court, the appellant State has preferred the present appeal.
4. It is submitted by learned APP that the judgment and order of the Sessions Court is against the provisions of law; the Sessions Court has not properly considered the evidence led by the prosecution and looking to the provisions of law itself it is established that the prosecution has proved the whole ingredients of the evidence against the present respondents. Learned APP has also taken this court through the oral as well as the entire documentary evidence. Learned APP for the appellant – State submitted that the mother, father and brother and other relatives of the deceased had supported the case of the prosecution and the allegation against the accused asked for money and ornaments from the deceased and for which he was giving illtreatment and harassment to the deceased. She also submitted that the accused had not allowed the deceased to go at her parental house. She read the oral evidence of P.W.1 Kishorsinh Roopsinh Rathod, at Exhibit 19 and submitted that from the evidence of this witness, it has come out that the accused gave harassment to the deceased and on the day of incident, the accused demanded ornaments from the deceased and the deceased had not given the same. The deceased committed suicide on account of harassment of the accused. As per the evidence of P.W.2 Narendrasinh Javansinh at Exhibit 20, it is reflected that the accused was demanding the ornaments from the deceased frequently and the accused caused harassment to the deceased. She read the evidence of P.W.3 Chanchalba, mother of the deceased, P.W.4 Ranjeetsinh, P.W.5 Amratlal, P.W. 6 Dr. Sarlaben and other witnesses recorded before the trial Court and submitted that the deceased committed suicide due to harassment of the accused. She drew the attention of this Court to the contents of P.M. note, panchnama and complaint. She submitted that the prosecution proved the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt, but learned trial Judge has not properly appreciated the evidence and wrongly acquitted the accused and therefore, by way of this Appeal, she prayed to allow the appeal by quashing and setting aside the judgment and order of the trial Court.
5. Other side is served but he remained absent.
6. I have perused the record and considered the submissions made by the parties. First of looking to the evidence of witnesses, who were examined by the prosecution, are the family members of the deceased. There are several contradictions between the evidence of the witnesses as well as documentary evidence. Looking the place of the offence and contents of panchnama, it appears that the prosecution did not examine any independent witness during the trial. From the evidence, it is not established that the accused had instigated or provoked the deceased to commit suicide. From the record, it appears that the deceased wanted to live at her parental house with the accused and the fact that the accused requested by writing a letter to the deceased to stay with him at her matrimonial house in the year 1988. From the evidence it appears that P.W.1 did not state anything with regard to the harassment caused by the accused before the police. Even the ingredients under Section 498(A) and 306 of the Indian Penal Code are not attracted to the case of the accused. Therefore, the learned trial Judge has rightly acquitted the accused from the charges levelled against him.
7. At the outset it is required to be noted that the principles which would govern and regulate the hearing of appeal by this Court against an order of acquittal passed by the trial Court have been very succinctly explained by the Apex Court in a catena of decisions. In the case of Chandrappa Vs. State of Karnataka, reported in (2007)4 SCC 415 the Apex Court laid down the following principles:
“42. From the above decisions, in our considered view, the following general principles regarding powers of the appellate court while dealing with an appeal against an order of acquittal emerge:
[1] An appellate court has full power to review, reappreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded.
[2] The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 puts no limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such power and an appellate court on the evidence before it may reach its own conclusion, both on questions of fact and of law.
[3] Various expressions, such as, “substantial and compelling reasons”, “good and sufficient grounds”, “very strong circumstances”, “distorted conclusions”, “glaring mistakes”, etc. are not intended to curtain extensive powers of an appellate court in an appeal against acquittal. Such phraseologies are more in the nature of “flourishes of language” to emphasis the reluctance of an appellate court to interfere with acquittal than to curtail the power of the court to review the evidence and to come to its own conclusion.
[4] An appellate court, however, must bear in mind that in case of acquittal there is double presumption in favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of innocence is available to him under the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is proved guilty by a competent court of law. Secondly, the accused having secured his acquittal, the presumption of his innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and strengthened by the trial court.
[5] If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court.”
8. Thus, it is a settled principle that while exercising appellate power, even if two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court.
9. Thus, in case the appellate court agrees with the reasons and the opinion given by the lower court, then the discussion of evidence is not necessary.
10. I have gone through the judgment and order passed by the trial court. I have also perused the oral as well as documentary evidence led before the trial court and also considered the submissions made by learned APP for the appellantState. Thus, from the evidence itself, it is established that the prosecution has not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
11. Learned APP is not in a position to show any evidence to take a contrary view of the matter or that the approach of the trial court is vitiated by some manifest illegality or that the decision is perverse or that the trial court has ignored the material evidence on record.
12. In the above view of the matter, I am of the considered opinion that the trial court was completely justified in acquitting the respondents of the charges leveled against them.
13. I find that the findings recorded by the trial court are absolutely just and proper and in recording the said findings, no illegality or infirmity has been committed by it.
14. I am, therefore, in complete agreement with the findings, ultimate conclusion and the resultant order of acquittal recorded by the court below and hence find no reasons to interfere with the same. Hence the appeal is hereby dismissed. Bail bond, if any, stands cancelled. Record and proceedings to be sent back to trial Court, forthwith.
(Z.K. SAIYED, J.) ynvyas