Court No. - 20
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 7356 of 2009 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Luxmi Shankar Tiwari 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 preferred against the impugned judgment and order dated 01.04.2009 passed by Special Judge, S.C./S.T. Act, Gorakhpur in S.S.T. No.177 of 1999 (State Vs. Laxmi Shankar Tiwari), whereby the accused respondent was acquitted from the charges under Sections 506 I.P.C. and Section 3(1)(X) of S.C./S.T. Act.
Prosecution story, in brief, is that complainant Lalti Devi has given a letter on 13.01.1996 to Commissioner, Gorakhpur stating therein that her ancestral were living as a tenant in the house of Pramchand at the rate of Rs.2/- per month. Her bua Sohra and Dharma were also residing there. At about 18-19 years ago accused respondent has purchased some land near the said house and forcibly got dilapidated the said house and her household articles were thrown away from that house. Since then she is residing there after building a hut on the said land. On 12.01.1996 accused respondent Laxmi Narayan Tiwari came along with some unsocial persons arms with weapons and threatened her to dire consequence.
After the direction of the Commissioner, Gorakhpur, an FIR was registered and after completion of the investigation charge sheet has been submitted against the accused respondent.
Prosecution in support of its case examined P.W.1 Lalti Devi and P.W.2 Sant Lal.
Perusal of the impugned judgment and order reveals that learned trial court had acquitted the accused respondent on the ground that there is old enmity between the complainant and the accused respondent; no independent witness has been produced to prove the prosecution version; prosecution story is not believable; the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt.
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 laid down 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 I have perused the impugned judgment and order of the trial court and do not find any illegality, infirmity and perversity in the same. The view taken by the trial judge is just, proper and does not suffer from any misreading of any material evidence on record.
In view of the aforesaid, 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 :- 23.8.2018 Anand Sri./-