Rajvir Singh vs State of U.P. and Others

Vijay Lakshmi, J.�Aggrieved by the judgment and order dated 30.8.2010 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Khurja, District Bulandshahr in Sessions Trial No. 906 of 2007, (State v. Sri Om and others) arising out of Case Crime No. 6638 of 2006 under sections 147, 148, 323, 149, 324 r/w 149, 436 IPC P.S. Khurja, District Bulandshahr, whereby the learned Trial Judge has acquitted all the accused persons from the charges levelled against them under the aforesaid sections, the complainant/informant has preferred this appeal under section 372 Cr.P.C. We have heard Shri A.P.S. Raghav, learned Counsel for the appellant as well as Shri Rajesh Singh holding brief of Shri S.N. Yadav for the private respondents and Sri Chandrajeet Yadav learned AGA for the State and have carefully perused the record.

The prosecution story in brief is that the appellant/informant Rajvir Singh lodged an FIR at Police Station Khurja Nagar, District Bulandshahr on 10.12.2006 at 8:30 a.m. to the effect that in the morning at about 7:00 a.m., on the same day i.e. 10.12.2006, accused persons Sri Om S/o Mukundi Lal, Jayanti S/o Devi Singh, Chandrabhan, Pankaj, Sachin, Pradeep, Manish, Rajpal, Rajendra, Mahendra and Komal, all belonging to Jatav community, all armed with Lathi, Danda, Ballam and country made pistols reached in their colony (colony of Valmikis) and set ablaze their houses. As a result, the personal belongings of inmates of those houses got burnt and destroyed. The informant and his family members somehow escaped from the spot and saved their lives. The motive behind the occurrence is also mentioned in the FIR itself according to which Vinod Jatav, son of one Saanwalia, had been murdered by some anti-social elements and Jatavs were thinking that someone belonging to Valmiki community was responsible for the murder of Vinod. So in order to take revenge of Vinod''s murder they had committed the offence.

On the basis of this written report, criminal case under sections 147, 148, 307, 436, 149 was registered at Crime No. 663-A of 2006 against 13 accused persons named in the FIR and the matter was investigated.

After investigation, the police submitted charge-sheet. The case was committed to the Sessions Court where charges were framed against all the accused persons, who denied the charges and claimed their trial.

The prosecution in order to prove its case produced eight witnesses in all out of which only three were witnesses of fact and the remaining five witnesses were formal witness.

The learned Trial Court after a detailed scrutiny of evidence, came to the conclusion that the statements of the prosecution witnesses were not reliable as they did not find support with the statement of the I.O. being in total contradiction with the earlier statements of witnesses recorded by the I.O. under section 161 Cr.P.C. Moreso, the witnesses had stated that the accused persons had set ablaze total 21 houses of the people belonging to Valmiki community but the investigating Officer had not found any burnt articles or even any ash at the place of occurrence nor any burnt furniture or other household items in a burnt condition were found by the I.O. There is no recovery memo. Besides it, the learned Trial Court found material contradictions in the statements of injured witnesses P.W.-3 Smt. Sadhna, P.W.-2 her husband Shyam and P.W.-l Rajvir. The learned Trial Court also noted that oral evidence does not find support with the medical evidence. On these grounds the trial resulted in acquittal.

The aforesaid judgement has been assailed in the instant appeal mainly on the grounds that the Trial Court has committed manifest error of law by not appreciating the evidence in correct perspective and by not placing reliance upon the statements of the eyewitnesses P.W.-l, P.W.-2 and P.W.-3 who are the injured witness too and whose injuries have been duly proved by the doctor. As such the judgment passed by the learned Trial Court be set aside.

We have to reappreciate the evidence independently for arriving at a correct conclusion. A close scrutiny of evidence available on record shows that in this case the prosecution has produced only one injured witness as P.W. -3 who is Sadhna, W/o Shyam. Shyam has been produced as P.W.-2. Although Shyam has stated that he and other persons also received injuries during the occurrence, but his statement does not find support from the documentary evidence as there are only two injury reports on record one of Smt. Sadhna and the other of Smt. Omwati, w/o Pappi. Omwati has not been produced as witness by the prosecution. Thus, Sadhna is the star witness in this case. Sadhna has stated that the accused persons who were about 13-14 in No. armed with country made pistols, cans of kerosene oil, lathi, danda, ballam entered into the colony started marpeet with them and set fire to their house. She has stated that the accused persons stayed there for about one hour and all of them assaulted her during that period. Under these circumstances, she ought to have received several injuries on her person but her injury report shows that she has received only one injury in outer aspect of wrist which too was found already stitched and no blood was found on it. Sadhna has been medically examined the same day i.e. on 10.12.2006 at about 4:15 p.m. but there is no evidence on record as to when and where her wound got stitched.

The other injured Omwati who is said to have also received injury has received only two injuries out of which one is contused swelling on the inner aspect of ankle and the other is abrasion 1.5 cm x 1 cm on the back of her right wrist. In the opinion of Doctor all the injuries can be caused by a blunt object. However, the doctor could not give any opinion regarding duration of injuries. The Dr. who has examined both the witnesses has stated that injury of Sadhna was already stitched so he cannot give any opinion whether the injury was caused by a blunt object or by any sharp edged weapon. Sadhna has not stated anything about when and where she got her wound stitched which is a major omission raising doubt in the veracity of her statement.

One more fact questioning the credibility of her statement is that she has stated that at the time of occurrence, her husband was present in the house. It appears unnatural conduct on the part of her husband that he did not try to rescue her as he had not receive any injury.

Apart from these facts, there also appear material contradictions between the statement of P.W.-1-Rajveer Singh, and P.W.-3 Sadhna. e.g. P.W.1 has stated that when the accused persons entered in the colony of Valmikis and started setting fire their house, he closed his door from inside. But when the accused persons after breaking the door entered into his house, he went inside the store room and saw the occurrence from its window. To the contrary, P.W.-3 has stated that when the accused persons entered into their house all of them ran outside of the house to save their lives and after three days of the occurrence they returned to their house. Likewise, P.W.-2 Shyam has stated that as soon as his wife received farsa injury he ran away from the spot to save his life. He has also stated that while he was running from the spot, he met the police in the way. In total contradiction with the aforesaid statement, he has further stated that all the accused persons committed marpeet which continued for about one hour and after marpeet they went to their neighbour''s house at about 7 O''clock. The time of occurrence as mentioned in the FIR i.e. 7:00 a.m. also becomes doubtful in view of aforesaid statement of P.W.-2.

It is also worth mentioning that there are three Investigating Officer in this case. The first Investigating Officer Shyam Singh has been examined as P.W.-6, the second Investigating Officer S.I. Balveer Singh as P.W.-7 and the third Investigating Officer Inspector Shri B.K. Tyagi has been produced as P.W.-8 in this case. The first Investigating Officer has stated that the complainant Ramveer did not inform him that he received any injury, he did not find any burnt vehicle, furniture or household articles on the spot. He has further stated that Ramveer or any other person of the locality had not given him any list of the burnt articles. The third Investigating Officer Shri B.K. Tyagi has stated that Sadhna never told him about the weapon assigned to the accused persons, she never told him about the injury of Omwati and she also did not inform him that all the accused persons remained there for one hour and committed marpeet with her and assaulted her. There is also a cross case of the occurrence about which the prosecution witnesses have not stated anything which clearly shows that the witnesses are not stating the true facts.

Thus, on a close scrutiny of the statement of witnesses produced by the prosecution, we are of the firm view that the statements of witnesses suffer from material contradictions, improvements, embellishments, omissions and do not inspire confidence. The learned Trial Court has rightly disbelieved them and consequently, acquitted all the accused persons.

Learned Counsel for the appellant could not show any infirmity or illegality in the findings recorded by the learned Trial Court and we too, find no good ground to interfere in the findings recorded by the Trial Court. In a catena of judgements, the Hon''ble Supreme Court has reiterated the law that even where two views are reasonably possible from the very same evidence, Appellate Court should not reverse the judgment of acquittal by Trial Court viz. C. Antony Vs. K.G. Raghavan Nair, Chandrappa v. State, 2007 (58) ACC 402 (SC) K. Prakashan Vs. P.K. Surenderan, and T. Subramanian Vs. State of Tamil Nadu, .

For the aforesaid reasons, this appeal is liable to be dismissed and is, dismissed accordingly.