AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
M.N. Rao, J.—This appeal by the State, represented by the Public Prosecutor, is directed against the judgment of the learned I Additional Sessions Judge, Guntur in Sessions Case No. 109 of 1991 acquitting the sole respondent herein (A-2) of the charge u/s 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
Originally, two persons were prosecuted for the offence in question but by the time the case came up for trial, A1 died and so A2 alone was tried and acquitted.
The prosecution case as placed before the trial Court, in brief, was as follows :- On the night of 15-4-1990 at about 8.00 p.m., the deceased Kunchala Rama Rao, who was an employee of the A.P. State Road Transport Corporation, Chilakaluripet Depot, along with PWs. 2 and 3 (also employees of Chilakaluripet Depot) and some others went to the house of one Subha Rao, another employee, in connection with the marriage of the latter''s sister and all of them had dinner at Subha Rao''s house. When they were returning at about 9.45 p.m. at the cross-road of Chilakaluripet, they saw A1 and A2 quarreling with PW 4, who was driving the R.T.C. bus bearing registration No. AP9/722232 plying from Macherla to Madras. The accused questioned PW 4 why he honked horn at the center. The deceased Kunchala Rama Rao interfered and questioned the accused as to why they were unnecessarily quarrelling with PW 4. Thereupon, A1 took out a knife from his pant pocket and stabbed the deceased on his right abdomen. A2 also took out a knife from his pant pocket and stabbed the deceased on his left abdomen below the chest, as a result of which the deceased fell down bleeding profusely. PWs. 2 and 3 and others took the injured to Chilakaluripet Town Police Station in a rickshaw. At the police station H.C. 397 (PW 7) recorded the statement of the injured - Ex.P 6 - and registered the same as Crime No. 129 of 1990 u/s 307 IPC and issued First Information Report, Ex.P 7, at about 10.30 p.m. on 15-4-1990. PW 7 also sent the injured to the Government Hospital, Chilakaluripet, but having come to know that the Medical Officer was on leave, the injured was taken to the private nursing home of one Dr. Grandhi Rama Rao (PW 6). The Sub-Inspector of Police, Chilakaluripet, PW 15, went to the nursing home of PW 6 and recorded the statement of the injured; the statement is Ex.P 12. He also recorded the statements of PWs. 1 to 3 and another Sivaiah. After first-aid was given to the injured, he was removed in a jeep with police escort to the Government General Hospital, Guntur and admitted in the Casualty Ward by PW 8, the duty doctor, at about 12.45 p.m. on the intervening night of 15/16-4-1990. While undergoing treatment at the hospital, the injured succumbed to the injuries on 17-4-1990 at about 10.30 a.m. After receiving the death intimation, the Section in the FIR was altered from 307 IPC to 302 IPC. The Inspector of Police, Chilakaluripet Circle held inquest over the dead body of the deceased at the mortuary of the Government General Hospital, Guntur on 18-4-1990 from 8.00 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. Ex.P 9 is the inquest report. PW 5, Assistant Professor of Forensic Medicine, Guntur Medical College, conducted autopsy over the dead body of the deceased and issued Ex.P 5, post-mortem certificate. PW 5 found four external and two internal injuries on the body of the deceased and the opinion of PW 5 was that external injuries 1 and 2 associated with internal injuries were sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature. The accused were arrested by the Inspector of Police on 18-4-1990 at about 5 p.m. in the presence of PW 11 and the others. Pursuant to the confessional statement of A1. M.O. 1, button knife was recovered and seized by the Inspector of Police. After completion of the investigation, charge-sheet was laid.
As already stated supra, by the date of trial, A1 died and so the charge against him abated. All the eye witnesses, PWs. 1 to 4 turned hostile. The Investigating Officer, Sri Gurucharandas, Inspector of Police, did not give evidence despite the fact several opportunities were given to him. The learned Sessions Judge held that when once the material witnesses did not support the theory of the prosecution and turned hostile and the Investigating Officer did not give evidence to prove the investigation conducted by him, it was unsafe to record a conviction on the material available on record. Challenging the correctness of the judgment, the present appeal was brought by the Public Prosecutor.
Sri M. N. Narasimha Reddy, learned Additional Public Prosecutor, contends that although the direct witnesses have turned hostile, there is still valid material available on record clinchingly establishing the complicity of A2 in the crime in question; the two statements - Exs. P6 and P12 - recorded by the Head Constable and the Sub-Inspector of Police PWs. 7 and 15 respectively, would establish the identity of the accused and injuries inflicted by him, as a result of which the deceased died in the hospital.
We are unable to accept the submissions of the learned Additional Public Prosecutor. The incident happened at 9.45 p.m. on 15-4-1990. Ex. P6 was claimed to have been recorded by PW 7, the Head Constable, at 10 p.m. at the police station. The injured was alive on 16-4-1990 and it was only on the morning of 17-4-1990 at 10.30, he succumbed to the injuries at the Government General Hospital, Guntur. There was absolutely no evidence that the injured was unconscious and, therefore, his dying declaration could not be recorded by the local Judicial Magistrate of the First Class at Chilakaluripet. When there is a Magistrate available at Chilakaluripet and when the injured was in a conscious condition - about this, the evidence 6, private doctor, is very clear - we do not see any valid reason why the Magistrate was not requested to record the dying declaration. We are also not inclined to place any reliance on Ex. P12, the 161 Cr.P.C. statement of the injured recorded by PW 15, the Sub-Inspector of Police. It is ununderstandable why the police did not take steps to request the Magistrate to record the dying declaration especially the Magistrate was available in Chilakaluripet on the day when the crime in question occurred.
In Dalip Singh v. State of Punjab AIR 1979 SC 1173 : (1979 Cri LJ 700) the Supreme Court adverting to the question of the evidentiary value of a dying declaration recorded by the Investigating Officer when there was enough time to have recourse to more reliable methods of recording a dying declaration, observed :
"...... As observed by this Court in Munnu Raja and Another Vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh, the practice of the Investigating Officer himself recording a dying declaration during the course of investigation ought not to be encouraged. We do not mean to suggest that such dying declarations are always untrustworthy, but, what we want to emphasize is that better and more reliable methods of recording a dying declaration of an injured person should be taken recourse to and the one recorded by the police officer may be relied upon if there was no time or facility available to the prosecution for adopting any better method."
Another glaring defect in the prosecution case is that no evidence was brought on record that the accused was the person who was referred to as the assailant by the deceased in the statements Ex. P6 and P12. The witnesses, who turned hostile, deposed that they did not know who A2 was and according to them two youngsters picked up quarrel with PW 4, the bus driver. The learned Sessions Judge, in our opinion, has rightly rejected the prosecution case and acquitted the accused. Affirming the view taken by the learned Sessions Judge, we dismiss the appeal.
Appeal dismissed.