Court No. - 20
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 4557 of 2009 Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Vijay Kumar Gupta And Others Counsel for Appellant :- GA
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 15.01.2009 passed by Special Judge S.C./S.T. Act, Gorakhpur in Special Case No.90 of 1998 (State Vs. Vijay Kumar Gupta & others), whereby the accused respondents were acquitted from the charges under Sections 323/34, 504, 506 I.P.C. and Section 3(1)(X) of S.C./S.T. Act.
Prosecution story, in brief, is that complainant Smt. Kumari w/o Kodai Gupta had given a written report on 22.08.1996 at about 21.35 hours to the concerned police station stating therein that her husband resides in Dubai and she had received his letter but the said letter had been manipulated by accused respondent Vijay Kumar Gupta and instead of the original letter manipulated letter had been given to her. When she had gone accompanying her son Sachidanand to accused respondent Vijay Kumar Gupta at 7.00 p.m. to inquire about the aforementioned letter then accused respondents Vijay Kumar Gupta, Mahendra Kumar Gupta, Jitendra, Suresh, Ram Dhani Gupta starting abusing them and attacked on her son with lathi-danda and fist and said "dhobi ki jaati tumhara man badh gaya hai aaj theek kar doonga". When her son Sachidanand shouted to save him then his relative Rajesh Kumar and Ram Preet along with other villagers came there to save him. Then accused respondents while going threatened him to kill them.
FIR of the incident had been lodged and after completion of the investigation charge sheet has been submitted against the accused respondents.
Prosecution in support of its case examined P.W.1 Smt. Rajesh Kumar, P.W.2 Smt. Kumari, P.W.3 Sachidanand, P.W.4 Dr. S.K. Pathak, P.W.5 Arun Kumar Singh, P.W.6 Rajesh Kumar (ASP) and P.W.7 Parshu Ram Singh (S.I.).
Perusal of the impugned judgment and order reveals that learned trial court had acquitted the accused respondents on the ground that medical evidence is not in consonance with the eye version account; there is no clinching evidence with regard to Section 3(1)(X) of S.C./S.T. Act; there are material contradictions in the statements of fact witnesses; the whole prosecution story seems to be doubtful; 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 :- 24.8.2018 Anand Sri./-