The burden of proof lies on the prosecution to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; an acquittal is justified when evidence is inadequate.

JUDGMENT :

S.V. PINTO, J.

1. The appeal is filed by the appellant State under Section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against the judgement and order of acquittal passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Sabarkantha at Himmatnagar (hereinafter referred to as “the learned Appellate Court”) in Criminal Appeal No. 10/2010 on 19.10.2010, whereby, the learned Appellate Court has set aside the judgment and order of conviction passed by the learned Second Additional Senior Civil Judge and Judicial Magistrate First Class, Sabarkatha at Himmatnagar (hereinafter referred to as the “learned Trial Court”) in Criminal Case No. 2004 of 2003 on 30.12.2009.

1.1 The respondents were charged for the offence under Sections 406 , 415, 416, 417, 419, 420, 120B, 494, 506(2) of the INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860 and at the end of the trial, the learned Trial Court was pleased to acquit the accused from the offence under Sections 406 , 416, 494 and 506(2) of INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860 and was pleased to convict the accused for the offence under Section 420 and 120B of the INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860 and sentence both the accused to rigorous imprisonment of three years and fine of Rs. 1000/- each and in default, rigorous imprisonment for 30 days for the offence under Section 420 of the INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860 and rigorous imprisonment of three months and fine of Rs. 500/- each and in default, rigorous imprisonment for a period of seven days for the offence under Section 120B of the INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860.

1.2 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 The complainant - Rajendrakumar Durgashankar Joshi was aged 38 years and was physically challenged and had difficulties for finding a marriage partner and had tried on a number of occasions to get married and had come in contact with the accused no. 1. The accused no. 1 had introduced the accused no. 2 as the President of Priyanka Marriage Bureau and both the accused entered into a criminal conspiracy and got the complainant married on 01.07.2002 to one Savitaben who a married woman and had taken an amount of Rs. 45,000/- from the complainant for the marriage. The accused in criminal conspiracy with each other had cheated the complainant and hence, the complainant filed a private complaint against six persons before the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Himmatnagar which came to be registered as Criminal Inquiry No. 13 of the 2003. The learned Chief Judicial Magistrate was pleased to pass an order under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and sent the complaint for investigation to the Gambhoi Police Station and at the end of the investigation a charge sheet came to be filed against both the accused and three absconding accused whose names were shown in column no. 2 of the charge sheet which came to be registered as Criminal Case No. 2004 of 2003.

2.2 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. 34 was framed against the accused and the statements of the accused was recorded at Exhs. 35 and 36 wherein, the accused denied the contents of the charge and the entire evidence of the prosecution was taken on record.

2.3 The prosecution examined 9 witnesses and produced 8 documentary evidences on rec