Court No. - 58
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 1604 of 1997 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Jagdish And Anr Counsel for Appellant :- Govt. Advocate
Hon'ble Ravindra Nath Kakkar,J.
Heard learned A.G.A. for State-appellant and perused the material placed on record.
The instant appeal has been filed alongwith application seeking leave to appeal against impugned judgement and order dated 09.01.1996 passed by Civil Judge Avar Khand, Agra in Case No. 167 of 1996 (State Vs. Jagdish Kumar and others) whereby he has acquitted the opposite party of charges under Sections 498-A, 323, 506 I.P.C.
Prosecution story in brief is that complainant has lodged an F.I.R. to the police station concerned against the accused-respondent stating therein that she was married with respondent no. 1 on 11.12.1994. After her marriage her husband had demanded additional dowry from her and her parents and when demand of additional dowry was not fulfilled, she was beaten by her husband and mothers-in-law by kick and fists. She got out from her in-laws house. The family members including the husband of the complainant threatened to kill her.
After completion of Investigation, Investigating officer has submitted the charge sheet against the accused-respondents before the trial court. Accused-respondents denied the allegations levelled against them and claimed trial.
Witnesses PW1/complainant Sadhana, PW2 Vidya Devi, PW3 Khoob Chandra, PW4 Nand Lal and PW5 Assistant S.O. Shalinihave examined themselves to prove the case.
Perusal of the impugned judgement and order reveals that, learned court below recorded the acquittal against the accused-respondent on the ground that no any independent witness has been produced before the trial court to prove the aforesaid incident. All the witnesses produced by the prosecution before the court below are interested witnesses. No medical certificate has been produced with respect to the injury sustained by the complainant in the aforesaid incident. There are material contradictions in the statement of the fact witnesses. Place of incident does not find support to the prosecution version.
It is relevant to mention that in Gamini Bala Koteswara Rao Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 2010 SC Page 589 the Hon'ble Apex Court has held that:-
"Only in a case when the judgement of the trial court is stated to be perverse i.e. against the weight of evidence, only then conclusion drawn by the trial Court could be re-appraised."
In K. Prakashan Vs. P. K. Surenderan (2008) 1 SCC, 258, Hon'ble Apex Court held that:-
" When two views are possible appellate Court should not reverse the judgement of acquittal merely because the other view was possible when judgement of trial court was neither perverse nor suffered from any illegality or non consideration/misappropriation of evidence on record, reversal thereof by High Court was not justified."
In T. Subramanyan Vs. Tamilnadu (2006) 1 SCC, page 401, Hon'ble Apex Court laiddown that:-
"Where two views are reasonably possible from the very same evidence prosecution cannot be said to have proved its case beyond reasonable doubt."
In light of above legal propositions and on a careful perusal of the impugned judgement and record, it cannot be said that the view taken by the trial judge is perverse or unreasonable. Simply because another view might have been taken of the evidence, does not provide any ground for interfering with the order of acquittal, unless the view taken by the trial judge is not a possible view. The Court below has given cogent, convincing and satisfactory reasons while passing the impugned judgement and order. The impugned judgement and order passed by the Court below does not suffer from any infirmity. On the evidence, available on record, it cannot be said that the view taken by the trial judge was not a reasonably possible view.
In this view of the matter, there is no merit in the application for leave to appeal which is hereby rejected and consequently the present appeal is, accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 30.3.2018 AKT