Court No. - 20
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 4249 of 2007 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Muneeb Yadav 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 16.01.2007 passed by Additional Sessions Judge/Fast Track Court No.3, Gorakhpur in S.T. No.43 of 2006 (State Vs. Muneeb Yadav), whereby the accused respondent was acquitted from the charges under Section 8/20 of N.D.P.S. Act.
Prosecution story, in brief, is that complainant Station Officer/Incharge Mata Prasad Shukla along with his other companion on 16.03.2006 was busy in maintaining peace and tranquillity in the area and when they reached Bahad place, Soukhor in search of wanted accused persons, a person alighted from the bus with a bag in his right hand and after seeing the police party tried to ran away. He was chased and caught hold. On asking he told his name as Muneeb Yadav and also told that he is carrying ganja with him which he purchased to sale in Gorakhpur. The police party also asked him that whether he wanted to made search before a Gazetted Officer/Magistrate but he shown full faith on the police party; accordingly a consent letter was taken from him and thereafter search and seizure was made. The balance and weight were brought at the spot about 2.50 kg. ganja for which he failed to show any document. The recovered ganja was sealed.
On the basis of the aforesaid recovery, 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 Mata Prasad Shukla, P.W.2 Jitendra Rai, P.W.3 Audhu Ram and P.W.4 Tej Narain.
Perusal of the impugned judgment and order reveals that learned trial court had acquitted the accused respondent on the ground that Section 57 of the NDPS Act has not been complied with; no independent witness was produced to prove the prosecution version; 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./-