IMPORTANT POINT
The prosecution must establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and unreliable eyewitness testimony cannot support a conviction.

JUDGMENT :

(Pushpendra Singh Bhati, J.) :

1. This criminal appeal under Section 374 Cr.P.C. has been preferred claiming the following reliefs:

“It is, therefore, respectfully prayed that this appeal may kindly be allowed and the accused appellant may be acquitted of all the charges levelled against him and he be set at liberty”

2. The matter pertains to an incident which occurred in the year 1996 and the present appeal has been pending since the year 1998.

3. The accused-appellant laid a challenge to the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 10.03.1998 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Dungarpur, in Sessions Case 66/97 (State of Rajasthan v. Gattu @ Tulsa and ors.), whereby the present accused-appellant has been convicted and sentenced as below:

4. As the pleaded facts and the record would reveal, an information was received by the Police on 09.11.1996 at around 04:00 pm, to the effect that an unidentified dead body has been found lying in the Well. Upon taking out the dead body from the said Well, it was found that the same, as identified by Ranchod (PW-1) brother of the deceased, was that of one Gala (henceforth referred to as ‘deceased’). In the instant factual matrix, the accused-appellant and the deceased victim were having their lands nearby and on 08.11.1996, there occurred a verbal altercation between them regarding feeding and trespassing of cattle. After such verbal altercation, the deceased went to the accused-appellant’s father to complain about the conduct of the accused-appellant, and being annoyed by the same he reached the place and started hitting the deceased with a wooden stick; as a consequence whereof, the deceased, at the house of one Gebilal, succumbed to the injuries caused by the accused-appellant, whereafter, the accused-appellant disposed of the dead body in the aforesaid well.

5. On the basis of the aforementioned information, an FIR was registered against the accused-appellant under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter referred to as ‘IPC’) and against the 7 other accused persons under Section 201 IPC, thereafter, the investigation commenced accordingly. The police after completing the investigation, submitted a chargesheet under the aforesaid provisions of law; the learned Trial Court framed the charges against the accused-appellant and the other accused persons. The charges were read over to them, which they denied and claimed to stand the trial and the trial commenced accordingly.

6. During course of the trial, the evidence of 18 prosecution witnesses were recorded and 48 documents were exhibited on behalf of the prosecution, whereas, the accused-appellant produced 2 witnesses and exhibited 9 documents in support of the defence; whereafter, the accused-appellant and other accused persons was examined under Section 313 Cr.P.C., in which they, while denying all the charges, pleaded innocence and their false implication in the criminal case in question.

7. Subsequently, upon hearing the contentions of both the parties as well as considering the material and evidence placed on record, the learned Trial Court, convicted and sentenced the accused-appellant, as above, vide the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 10.03.1998, against which the present appeal has been preferred on behalf of the accused-appellant. However, as indicated above, the other accused persons were acquitted of the charges against them, by the learned Trial Court vide the impugned judgment.

8. Mr. Divik Mathur, learned Amicus Curiae appearing for the accused-appellant submitted that the testimony of PW-4 Shanti is unreliable, as a bar