Court No. - 26
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 4068 of 2009 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Pintoo Counsel for Appellant :- Desh Ratna Chaudhary/Ga
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 19.02.2009 passed in Sessions Trial No. 01 of 2001, under Sections 323, 504 and 506 I.P.C and Section 3(1)(X) SC/ST Act, P.S Jalalapur, District Hamirpur where by respondent was acquitted.
Submission of learned A.G.A. is that prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. All the prosecution witnesses examined in the matter have supported the prosecution case. Medical evidence was also in support of the prosecution case. Findings of 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, accused respondent was acquitted on the ground that there is major contradiction in the statement of P.W. 3 Dr R.C. Niranjan, and injury report prepared by him. Learned trial court has observed that the duration of injury shown in the injury report is within 24 hours. While P.W. 3 was examined before the Court has stated the duration only as 8 hours. Thus, on this ground injury report was not found a genuine document. It is also observed in the impugned judgment and order that informant had enmity with the respondent. There is also major contradiction in the statement of P.W. 2 on material point. If the findings recorded by the trial court in the impugned order are minutely analyzed with the facts and evidence of the present matter as well as the submission raised by learned AGA, no illegality or infirmity is found especially when there is a major contradiction in the statement of P.W. 2 itself on material point and injury report is also not a genuine document.
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."
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. Hence, the application for leave to appeal is refused.
Since the application for grant to leave has been refused, the appeal is also not liable to be admitted and is dismissed at this stage.
Order Date :- 24.8.2018 A.N. Mishra