The term "serious bodily injury" in Section 3 of the Rajasthan Preservation of Certain Animals Act, 1970, requires an injury that endangers the animal's life, results in its maiming or disability, or causes immense pain for a sufficient length of time.

1. :- This is an appeal by the State against an order of acquittal passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Partabgarh, in a case under Section 3 of the Rajasthan Preservation of Certain Animals Act, 1970, hereinafter to be referred as the "Act".

2. The allegation against the accused respondent was that on 23.6.1968 he had hit a cow with an axe on the hind portion of its body. The blade of the axe got stuck into the body of the animal. The accused was seen running behind the cow and P.W. 1 Lalit Kumar and P.W. 6 Mukram Khan had seen the cow running ahead of the accused and the axe was sticking on it. This was pulled out by Lalit Kumar. The cow belonged to one Chhotu Ahir. The cow was taken to the veterinary doctor Rameshchandra Gupta (P.W. 2) who examined the injury of the cow. Dr. Gupta reported that the injury of the cow was serious. The report of the incident was lodged by P.W. 1 Lalit Kumar at police station Partabgarh. The police registered a case against the accused and investigated the matter. The prosecution relied mainly on the evidence of three witnesses for proving their case against the accused namely, P.W. 1 Lalit Kumar, P.W. 7 Laxman and P.W. 8 Khaju Khan. Lalit Kumar stated that he was returning to his house from the office of the Panchayat Samiti. Partabgarh, when he had seen the cow running from what is described as 'Bada Bash' (a garden). The cow was running towards the 'Khala' and the accused was seen running after the cow at a distance of about 50 Panvdas' i.e. 250 feet or so. P.W. 7 Laxman stated that he had seen the cow in the 'Bada Bagh' and the accused ran after it with an axe in his hand. P.W. 8 Khaju Khan stated that he was working in the 'Bada Bagh' in which the accused was working and on the evening of the day of the incident the accused admitted before him that he had hit a cow with an axe and the cow had run away with the axe sticking on its body.

3. The learned Sessions Judge on consideration of the evidence came to the conclusion that the evidence was not reliable and was insufficient for proving the guilt of the accused. Learned Judge observed that neither Lalit Kumar nor Laxman had seen the accused hitting the cow with the axe. As regards the evidence of Khaju Khan (P.W. 8) the learned Judge observed that he did not make mention of the so called extra judicial confession made by the accused to anyone and nor had he taken the accused to the police station. Khaju Khan had further admitted one thing more which put his statement at a discount. It was that the police had called him to the Thana and had detained him during the night and had discharged him only on the following day at about 12 noon. The learned Judge, therefore, thought that much reliance could not be placed on Khaju Khan's testimony. There was one more witness P.W. 9 Ahmed Khan whose statement was also considered by the learned Judge. Ahmed Khan stated that the accused had snatched the axe from him before he ran after the cow. However, Ahmed Khan admitted in cross-examination that he did not make any report of this to the police against Sabir regarding his snatching die axe. Further, the learned Judge observed that Ahmed Khan had not been able to state as to when the axe was snatched by the accused. In the opinion of the learned Judge therefore, the evidence adduced by the prosecution was not sufficient.

4. Learned counsel for the State has challenged the conclusion reached by the learned Judge.

5. We have gone through all the relevant statements and are satisfied that the learned Judge was right in not placing any reliance on the statement of P.W. 8 Khaju Khan. It was strange that Khaju Khan did not make any mention of the extra judicial Confession made by the accused to anyone. Then the other two witnesses who had seen the accused running after the cow but not seen him actually striking the cow with the axe. Their evidence only creates a strong suspicion against the accused that perhaps it was he who had hit the cow with the axe