The appellate court must respect the presumption of innocence and will not interfere with an acquittal unless the trial court's conclusions are unreasonable.

JUDGMENT :

(S. V. PINTO, J.)

1. This appeal has been filed by the appellant- State under Section 378(1)(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against the judgement and order of acquittal passed by the learned Presiding Officer and Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No. 1, Ahmedabad (Rural), Viramgam (hereinafter referred to as "the learned Trial Court") in Sessions Case No. 1 of 2008 on 25.04.2008, whereby, the learned Trial Court has acquitted the respondents for the offence punishable under Sections 498(A), 306, 114 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).

1.1 The respondents are hereinafter referred to as “the accused” as they stood in the original case for the sake of convenience, clarity and brevity.

2. The brief facts that emerge from the record of the case are as under:

2.1 The accused No. 1 was the husband of deceased Geetaben and the accused No.2 was the sister-in-law (wife of the brother of the accused No. 1). The accused No. 1 and 2 had illicit relations between them and both of them used to mentally and physically harass deceased Geetaben to such an extent that on 12-11-2007 at around 17:00 Hrs the deceased sprinkled kerosene on herself and set herself ablaze. The complainant Hiraben Mavjibhai Thakore, the mother of deceased Geetaben filed the complaint before the Viramgam Town Police Station under Sections 498- A, 306, 201 and 114 of the IPC on 13-11-2007 at 18:30 hours, which was registered at Viramgam Town Police Station I-C.R.No.81 of 2007.

2.2] The Investigating Officer recorded the statements of the connected witnesses and collected the necessary documents and after completion of investigation the police filed the chargesheet against the accused before the Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Viramgam and as the said offences against the accused were exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions, the case was committed to the Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No. 1, Ahmedabad (Rural) at Viramgam as per the provisions of Section 209 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the case was registered Sessions Case No. 1 of 2008.

2.3] The accused were duly served with the summons and the accused appeared before the learned Trial Court, and it was verified whether the copies of all the police papers were provided to the accused as per the provisions of Section 207 of the Code and a charge at Exh. 3 was framed against the accused and the statements of the accused were recorded at Exhs. 4 and 5, wherein, the accused denied all the contents of the charge and the entire evidence of the prosecution was taken on record.

2.4] The prosecution produced the following evidence to bring home the charge against the accused.

ORAL EVIDENCES

DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCES

2.5] After the learned Additional Public Prosecutor filed the closing pursis at Exh. 8, the further statement of the accused under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 was recorded and after the arguments of the learned Additional Public Prosecutor and the learned advocate for the accused were heard, the learned trial Court by the impugned judgment and order was pleased to acquit the accused from all the charges leveled against them.

3. Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the said judgement and order of acquittal, the appellant - State has filed the present appeal mainly stating that the impugned judgement and order of acquittal passed by the learned Trial Court is contrary to law and ev