Shailendra Singh, J.—The instant appeal has been preferred against the judgment dated 28.04.2023 passed by learned Additional District & Sessions Judge -VII, Vaishali at Hajipur in Sessions Trial Case No. 437 of 2002 arising out of Bidupur P.S. Case No. 274 of 2001 whereby the learned trial court has acquitted the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 of the offences for which they were charged.

2. The substance of the prosecution story is as follows:—

As per the informant, namely Ram Snehi Singh @ Ram Snehi Kumar, on 18.10.2001, he was at his house then his brother Padam Ranjan Singh (respondent No. 2) and his cousin brother Om Prakash Singh (respondent No. 3) equipped with farsa and lathi came there and started abusing him and when he objected, the respondents got infuriated upon his resistance and thereafter he was assaulted by farsa on his head by respondent No. 2 and in following with the direction given by the respondent No. 2, respondent No. 3 also started assaulting him by means of lathi. When he cried, his wife, his uncle Vishambhar Singh, Lalan Singh, co-villager Satendra Kumar Singh and some other persons arrived there and saved him and thereafter, he was taken to the Sadar hospital, Hajipur by his wife and his uncle Vishambhar Singh. As per the informant, a dispute with regard to the construction of the boundary wall around a latrine in between both the parties was the main reason behind the occurrence.

3. The informant/appellant recorded his fardbeyan (Ext.- 1/1) on 18.10.2001 upon that basis the formal FIR was registered on 25.10.2001 under sections 341, 323, 324 and 504 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (in short ‘IPC’) and the same was sent to the court of learned Chief Judicial Magistrate (in short ‘C.J.M.’) on 30.10.2001. After the completion of the investigation, the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 were chargesheeted for the alleged offences. After the cognizance, the case of the respondents was committed to the court of Sessions. The respondents stood charged for the offences punishable under Sections 341/34, 504/34 and 323/34 of IPC and the respondent No. 2 stood charged separately for the offences under Sections 307 and 324 of IPC. Respondent No. 3 also stood charged separately for the offence under section 307 read with 34 of IPC.

4. During the trial, the prosecution examined four witnesses who are as under:—

5. In documentary evidence, the prosecution proved the fardbeyan of the informant as well as signature of the informant’s wife on fardbeyan and also, proved the injury report of the informant and got them marked as Exhibits which are as under:—

6. After completion of the prosecution evidence, the statements of the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 were recorded as per Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (in short ‘Cr.P.C.’), in which the main circumstance appearing against them from the prosecution evidence was denied by them and they claimed themselves to be innocent but they did not take any specific defence in their statements.

7. In defence evidence the respondents proved an order sheet of the Partition Suit No. 195 of 2005 (Ext.-A) related to a civil case pending before the court of learned Sub-Judge-IV, Vaishali at Hajipur.

8. After hearing both the parties and having analyzed the evidences, the learned trial court mainly took into account that the father of the informant, who was physically present at the place of occurrence during the alleged incident, was not produced as a prosecution witness and an inordinate delay of around 7-8 days took place in the registration of the FIR without any explanation and the prosecution failed to produce any independent person