Court No. - 26
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 4040 of 2009 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Mahendra Singh And Others Counsel for Appellant :- D.R. Chaudhary
Hon'ble Om Prakash-VII,J.
Heard learned AGA perused the entire record.
Present State appeal along with leave application has been preferred by the State of Uttar Pradesh against the judgement and order dated 14.01.2009 by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No.1, District Bijnor, in Sessions Trial No. 21 of 2002 under Sections 323/34, 504 and 506 I.P.C. and Section 3(1)(10) SC/ST Act, whereby accused-respondents were acquitted.
Submission of learned AGA is that prosecution was able to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. All the charges levelled against the accused-respondents were proved by the prosecution witnesses to the hilt. It was also argued that prosecution case is also supported by medical evidence. Findings recorded by trial court in the impugned judgment and order are perverse. Thus, prayer was made to grant leave to appeal.
I have considered the submissions made by the learned AGA.
In this matter, as is evident from the record, in the First Information Report, incident is said to have caused with the weapons lathi and danda. During trial one of the witness has stated that accused caused injury to the injured with the sharp edged weapon. Apart to this, trial court was also of the view that there is major contradiction in the statement of prosecution witnesses. Offence under Section 3(1)(X) SC/ST Act has not been proved nor is supported by the statement of prosecution witnesses, what actual word was used at the time of commission of the crime to attract offence under Section 504 I.P.C. and Section 3(1)(10) SC/ST Act have not been made clear by the witnesses during trial. If the findings recorded by the trial court and submissions raised by the learned AGA are minutely analyzed, no illegality, infirmity or perversity is found.
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."
On close scrutiny of entire evidence no illegality or infirmity is found in the impugned judgement and order which need no interference.
In view of the above, this Court is of the opinion that it is not a fit case to grant leave to appeal.
Thus, the application for leave to appeal is hereby rejected.
Since, leave to appeal application has been rejected, hence, the appeal is also dismissed.
Order Date :- 24.8.2018 A.N. Mishra