1. Though served, but nobody is appeared on behalf of the respondent. Therefore, the Appeal is taken up for final hearing on today.
2. The present appeal, under section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, is directed against the judgment and order of acquittal dated 27.8.1993 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Amreli, in Sessions Case No.43 of 1991, whereby the accused have been acquitted from the charges leveled against them.
3. The brief facts of the prosecution case are as under:
3.1 As per the case of the complainant, the daughter of the complainant namely Jaswantiben was married with the son of accused namely Dhirajlal before four years and out of wedlock, Jaswantiben gave birth one son. As per the case of the complainant, said Jaswantiben visit her parental home, which is near to her matrimonial home and complained about mental torture and harassment caused by her father inlaw as well as motherinlaw. Even they were abusing the deceased and they made wrong complaint of the deceased to the husband of the deceased. The deceased told about harassment to the neighbour. Therefore, due such harassment caused by the accused, the deceased poured kerosene on herself and ablazed her and died.
3.2 Therefore, a complaint with respect to the offence punishable under Sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code was lodged against the accused persons. Necessary investigation was carried out and statements of several witnesses were recorded. During the course of investigation, respondents were arrested and, ultimately, chargesheet was filed against him before the court of learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Bagsara. 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.43 of 1991. The trial was initiated against the respondents accused.
3.3 To prove the case against the present accused, the prosecution has examined, in all 11 witnesses and also produced several documentary evidence.
3.4 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 respondent of all the charges leveled against him by judgment and order dated 27.8.1993 .
4. Being aggrieved by and dissatisfied with the aforesaid judgment and order passed by the Sessions Court, the appellant State has preferred the present appeal.
5. 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 respondent. Learned APP has also taken this court through the oral as well as the entire documentary evidence. Learned APP Ms. Jhaveri for the appellant – State submitted that deceased committed suicide on account of harassment caused by the accused. She read the oral evidence of P.W.1 and submitted that from the evidence of this witness, it is clearly established that the due to harassment of the accused, the deceased committed suicide. She read the contents of Yadi at Exhibit 9, which reflects the cause of death due to burn injuries. She drew attention to the report at Exhibit 2 which shows that due to the harassment of respondent No.1, the deceased committed suicide and that statement is recorded by Dy. S.P.. She drew the attention of this Court to the provisions of Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code. She further submitted that due to cruelty on the part of the accused, the deceased committed suicide and the ingredients of instigation, provocation and abetment are very well established by the prosecution against the accused persons. Therefore, the judgment and order passed by the learned trial Judge is required to be quashed and set aside by allowing the present Appeal.
6. I have perused the record and considered the submissions made by the parties. From the evidence of the witnesses, it appears that as per the complainant, the accused persons harassed the deceased, but what kind of harassment caused by the accused upon the deceased is not reflected from the evidence or any other record. Therefore, it creates doubt to believe the case of the prosecution. I have perused the evidence produced on record and the prosecution is unable to prove the ingredients of Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code. The attempt on the part of the accused in the commission of the suicide by the deceased, is not proved even from the dying declaration. When a person dies of burn injures, it can be under three circumstances, (1) by accident, (2) homicide and (3) Suicidal. In order to bring the prosecution case within the ambit of Section 306, the prosecution must prove that the burn injures were in the nature of suicidal and suicidal attempt must be owing to instigation by the accused. Even from the evidence of witnesses, nothing is come out against the accused establishing that the accused had instigated the deceased to commit suicide. Learned Sessions Judge has rightly appreciated the evidence on record and rightly acquitted the accused.
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.
12. 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.
13. In the above view of the matter, I am of the considered opinion that the trial court was completely justified in acquitting the respondent of the charges leveled against him.
14. 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.
15. 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