IMPORTANT POINT
The court will interfere in a judgment of acquittal only if there are compelling and substantial reasons to do so, and if the trial court has ignored or misread material evidence.

JUDGMENT :

MANOJ KUMAR GARG, J.

1. The matter comes up on an application under Section 5 of Limitation Act for condonation of delay in filing the appeal.

2. For the reasons mentioned in the application, the application is allowed. The delay in filing the appeal is hereby condoned.

3. The appellant JVVNL has filed the present Criminal leave to Appeal under Section 378(iv) Cr.P.C. against the judgment dated 17.01.2023 passed by learned Special Judge (Electricity Theft Cases), Srigangangar in Criminal Case No. 85/2013 whereby the accused respondent has been acquitted from the offences under Section 135 of Electricity Act, 2003.

4. Brief facts of the case are that the complainant Rajaram Jakhar, Executive Engineer, Srikaranpur, Jodhpur Discom lodged a written report that on 08.10.2013, the accused respondent was found stealing electricity from the L.T. line. On this report a FIR No. 230/2012 was registered against the respondents for offence under Section 135 of Electricity Act and investigation commenced. After investigation, challan was presented against the respondent for offence under Section 135 of Electricity Act.

5. The trial Court framed charge against the accused respondent for the aforesaid offence. The accused respondent denied the charge and claimed to be tried.

6. The prosecution in support of its case recorded statements of four witnesses and exhibited documents. The statement of accused respondent under Section 313 Cr.P.C. was recorded but did not produce any evidence in defence.

7. After hearing arguments of both the sides, the trial Court acquitted the accused respondent for the offences charged giving him benefit of doubt.

8. The learned counsel for the appellant argued that the Court below without going through the entire record and evidence wrongly acquitted the accused respondent for the offence charged against him. The court below while passing the impugned order did not consider the statements of witnesses in correct perspective. It is argued that there were direct evidence as well as circumstantial evidence which proved the guilt of the accused respondents however, the trial court ignored the statement of prosecution witnesses being interested witnesses which resulted into erroneous acquittal of the accused respondent. Thus the judgment of the Court below is liable to be set aside and the accused respondent should be convicted for the offence charged against him.

9. I have heard the counsels for the parties and gone through the entire record.

10. From the evidence on record so also finding arrived by the learned trial court, it appears that the learned trial court has acquitted the accused respondents on the basis of material contradictions, omission and improvements in the statement of the witnesses. The learned Trial court came to the conclusion that the prosecution has failed to prove that the accused respondent was the owner of the premises or he was present at the time of inspection. In the opinion of this Court, the findings given by the trial Court are perfectly justified and there is no illegality in the judgment of acquittal by the trial Court.

11. In the case of Mrinal Das and Others vs. State of Tripura, 2011 (9) SCC 479, decided on September 5, 2011, the Hon'ble Supreme Court, after looking into many earlier judgments, has laid down parameters, in which interference can be made in a judgment of acquittal, by observing as under:

“An order of acquittal is to be interfered with only when there are “compelling and substantial reasons” for doing so. If the order is “clearly unreasonable” it is a compelling reason for interference. When the trial Court has ignored the evidence or misread the material evidence or has ignored material documents like dying declaration/report of ballistic experts etc. the appellate court is competent to reverse the decision of the trial Court depending on the materials placed.”

12. Similarly, in the case of State of Rajasthan vs. Shera Ram alias Vishnu Dutta, (2012) 1 SCC 602, the Hon'