Court No. - 26
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 4228 of 2010 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Baldish Sahni And Anr.
Counsel for Appellant :- Govt. Advocate
Hon'ble Om Prakash-VII,J.
Heard learned A.G.A. and perused the entire record.
The present appeal has been filed along with leave to appeal application against the impugned judgement and order dated 20.11.2009 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge/F.T.C., Court no. 3, Gorakhpur in Session Trial No. 132 of 2009 (State of U.P. Vs. Baldish Sahni and others), under Sections 498-A, 306, 201, I.P.C. Police Station Sikariganj, District Gorakhpur, whereby accused-respondents were acquitted.
Submission of learned A.G.A. is that prosecution was able to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. All the prosecution witnesses examined in the matter have supported the prosecution case yet deceased died in the house of accused-respondents. Burden was upon the respondents to prove the cause of death of deceased. Thus, findings recorded by the trial court are perverse. Thus, prayer was made to grant leave to appeal.
I have considered the submissions.
In this matter, as is evident from the record, F.I.R. is lodged after a gap of ten days of the incident. None of the prosecution witnesses examined in the matter have supported the prosecution case. It was also not ascertainable, whether the death of deceased was natural or unnatural, then findings recorded by the trial court in the impugned judgement and order cannot be termed to be illegal. Trial court has rightly appreciated the prosecution evidence and passed the impugned order acquitting the accused-respondents. If the findings recorded by the trial court are minutely analysed with the facts and evidence in consonance with submission raised by learned A.G.A., no illegality, infirmity or perversity is found in the impugned judgement and order.
Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of S. Govindaraju Versus State of Karnataka, (2013) 15 Supreme Court Cases 315 has held as under.
"It is a settled legal proposition that in exceptional circumstances, the appellate court, for compelling reasons, should not hesitate to reverse a judgment of acquittal passed by the court below, if the findings so recorded by the court below are found to be perverse i.e if the conclusions arrived at by the court below are contrary to the evidence on record, or if the court's entire approach with respect to dealing with the evidence is found to be patently illegal, leading to the miscarriage of justice, or if its judgment is unreasonable and is based on an erroneous understanding of the law and of the facts of the case. While doing so, the appellate court must bear in mind the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused, and also that an acquittal by the court below bolsters such presumption of innocence."
In the case of Gangabhavani Versus Rayapati Venkat Reddy and Others, (2013) 15 Supreme Court Cases 298, Hon'ble Supreme Court has held as under.
"This Court has persistently emphasised that there are limitations while interfering with an order against acquittal. In exceptional cases where there are compelling circumstances and the judgment under appeal is found to be perverse, the appellate court can interfere with the order of acquittal. The appellate court should bear in mind the presumption of innocence of the accused and further that the acquittal by the lower Court bolsters the presumption of his innocence. Interference in a routine manner where the other view is possible should be avoided, unless there are good reasons for interference."
Thus, the application moved by the appellant State of U.P. to grant leave to appeal for the reason discussed herein above is not liable to be allowed and same is refused.
Since the application for grant of leave to appeal has been refused, the appeal is also not liable to be admitted and is dismissed at this stage.
Order Date :- 24.8.2018 Sanjeet