Court No. - 58
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 2463 of 1997 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Ram Niwas Mittal Counsel for Appellant :- Vijay Shanker Mishra
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 08.01.1997 passed by C.J.M., Firozabad in Criminal Case No. 2703 of 1995 (State Vs. Ram Niwas Mittal) whereby he has acquitted the opposite party of charges under Sections 67 and 92 of Factories Act and sub Section 14/15 of Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulations Act 1986.
According to the prosecution case, it is alleged that on 12.9.1995 at about 2.30 p.m. the complainant inspected the M/s I. B. Glass Works. At the time of inspection Assistant Labour Commissioner was also accompanied with the Labour Inspector. At the time of inspection of the premises of the aforesaid factory 80 adult workers were found and two child labourers were also working in the said factory namely Rama Kant and Ravindra whose age was only 13 years. Thereafter a complaint was made against the accused- respondent. The statement under Section 251 Cr.P.C. was recorded in which accused-respondent stated that there was no any child labours were engaged in the Factory.
The accused-respondent was charged for the offence under Section 67 of the Factories Act and under Section 14/15 of Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulations) Act 1986 and the accused-respondent was tried by the court below.
Witnesses PW1 R. S. Mathur, PW2 I. V. Sinha have examined themselves to prove the case. Prosecution has also produced the copy of the Inspection report and the statements of child labourers to prove the case.
Accused-respondent in his statement recorded under Section 313 Cr.P.C. denied the allegations levelled against him. He has also produced the copy of age certificate before the trial court in support of his contention.
Perusal of the impugned judgement and order reveals that, learned court below recorded the acquittal against the accused-respondent on the basis of medical certificate which has been certified by the Chief Medical Officer wherein it is mentioned that the age of child laboures were above 14 years at the time of aforesaid incident.
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