The appellate court must respect the presumption of innocence and not overturn acquittals unless the trial court's conclusions are unreasonable or unsupported by evidence.

JUDGMENT :

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 Special Judge, Banaskantha, Palanpur (hereinafter referred to as "the learned Trial Court") in Special Case No. 8 of 2009 on 28.07.2010, whereby, the learned Trial Court has acquitted the respondents for the offence punishable under Section 506(2) of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereafter referred to as "IPC" for short) and Section 3(1)(10) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities), 1989.

1.1 The respondent is hereinafter referred to as the accused in the rank and file as he 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 That the complainant Pushpaben Arvindbhai Ninama was working as Additional Taluka Development Officer in the Taluka Panchayat Office and on 10/10/2008 16:20 Hrs., while she was working, the accused entered into her office and was using abusive language and she went and asked him why he was using abusive language and who was he? That, he told that he was a reporter of the message and his name was Aadambhai and he used caste-slurs and told her that he had her recording and at that time, he threatened to cut her into pieces and throw her in such way that she would not be found and hence the complainant filed the complaint at Danta Police Station, which was registered at II-C.R.No. 3080 of 2008 for the offence under Sections 186, 504 and 506(2) of the IPC and Section 3(1)(10) of the Atrocities Act.

2.2 The Investigating Officer recorded the statements of the connected witnesses and seized the necessary documents and after completion of investigation, a chargesheet came to be filed before the Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Danta and as the said offences against the accused was exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions, the case was committed to the Sessions Court, Banaskantha at Palanpur as per the provisions of Section 209 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and case was registered Special Case No. 8 of 2009.

2.3 The accused was 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. 4 was framed against the accused and the statement of the accused was recorded at Exh. 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 EVIDENCE

DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

2.5 After the learned Additional Public Prosecutor filed the closing pursis at Exh. 28, the further statement of the accused under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 was recorded, wherein, the accused denied all the evidence of the prosecution on record. The accused refused to step into the witness box or examine witnesses on his behalf and state that a false case has been filed against him. After the arguments of the learned Addition