The court upheld the presumption of innocence, affirming that a reasonable doubt in prosecution evidence justifies acquittal, and appellate review should respect trial court findings unless perverse.

JUDGMENT :

S.V. PINTO, J.

1. This appeal has been filed by the appellant State under Section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against the judgement and order of acquittal passed by learned 4^th Additional & Sessions Judge & Special Judge, Banaskantha (hereinafter referred to as "the learned Trial Court") in Special (Atrocity) Case No. 42 of 2011 on 25.07.2012, whereby, the learned Trial Court has acquitted the respondents for the offence punishable under Sections 323 , 504, 506(2) and 114 of INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860 (hereafter referred to as "IPC" for short) and Sections 3(1)(10) of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred to as “Atrocities Act”).

1.1 The respondents are hereinafter referred to as the accused in the rank and file 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 On 4-6-2010 at around 12.00 hours, the accused hurled caste-slurs against the complainant Jethabai Gokadbhai Parmar, while he was coming towards his house and met the accused near the Panchayat platform, the accused assaulted the complainant with fists and threatened to kill him and the complainant filed the complaint at the Palanpur Taluka Police Station under Section 323 , 504, 506 (2) and 114 of the INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860 and Section 3 (1)(10) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred to as the Atrocity Act), which came to be registered as Palanpur Taluka Police Station at II-C.R. No 54 of 2010.

2.2 The Investigating Officer recorded the statements of the connected witnesses and seized the necessary documents and after completion of investigation, a charge-sheet came to be filed before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Palanpur and as the said offence against the accused was exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions, the case was committed to the Sessions Court, Palanpur as per the provisions of Section 209 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and case was registered Special (Atrocities) Case No. 42 of 2011.

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. A charge at Exh. 5 was framed against the accused and the statements of the accused were recorded at Exhs.6 to 9, 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 seven oral evidences and eight documentary evidences to bring home the charge against the accused and after the learned Additional Public Prosecutor filed the closing pursis at Exh. 34, the further statement of the accused under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 were recorded, wherein, the accused denied all the evidence of the prosecution on record. The accused refused to step into the witness box but stated that he wanted to examine defense witness. 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 all 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 evidence on record and the learned Trial Court has not appreciated the fact that all the witnesses have supported the case of the prosecution and during cross-examination, nothing adverse has been elicited in favour of the respondents. The case has been proved beyond reasonable doubts and the prosecution has successfully esta