In appeals against acquittal, material contradictions in prosecution witnesses, doubtful presence, and failure to examine natural witnesses entitle accused to benefit of doubt where two views possible from evidence.

JUDGMENT :

Sandeep Sharma, J.

Instant Criminal Appeal filed under Section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, lays challenge to judgment of acquittal dated 20.11.2010 passed by learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Court No.1, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh in Criminal case No.107-II/2004, titled State of Himachal Pradesh vs. Sanjeev Kumar & Sonu, whereby learned trial Court held respondents-accused (hereinafter referred to as the accused) not guilty of having committed offence punishable under Sections 323 and 325 IPC and accordingly acquitted him.

2. Precisely, the case of the appellant-State, as has been highlighted in the appeal and further canvassed by Mr. Vishal Panwar, learned Additional Advocate General, is that the Court below has failed to appreciate the evidence in its right perspective, as a result thereof, accused, who had given merciless beatings to the complainant in the presence of independent witnesses, has been wrongly acquitted. While making this Court peruse statements of PW-2, Sh. Parveen Kumar and PW-3, Sh. Partap Chand, learned Additional Advocate General attempted to argue that prosecution has successfully proved on record that on the date of alleged incident, complainant was given severe beatings, as a result thereof, he suffered various injuries, which fact further came to be proved by PW-4, Dr. Ruby Bhardwaj. While referring to the statement of the complainant (PW-1), learned Additional Advocate General submitted that material prosecution witnesses categorically stated that accused had given beatings to the complainant on account of his having allegedly damaged the cassettes given to him by the accused. While referring to the cross-examination conducted upon prosecution witnesses, learned Additional Advocate General further submitted that bare perusal of the same does not suggest that defence was able to extract anything contrary to what these witness stated in their examination-in-chief.

3. To the contrary, Mr. Ajay Sharma, learned senior counsel duly assisted by Mr. Tarun Brakta, Advocate, representing the respondent-accused, while supporting the impugned judgment of acquittal, submitted that no illegality can be said to have been committed by learned trial court, while discarding the testimonies of PW-2 and PW-3 as they were not the witnesses on the spot. While referring to rapat Ex. PW6/A, which was duly proved on record by PW-6, Sh. Surinder Kumar, Mr. Sharma submitted that as per the initial statement given by the complainant he was allegedly rescued by some boys, who were standing near the shop, but interestingly, none of those boys ever came to be examined by the prosecution, rather prosecution, with a view to prove its case, examined those persons, who had no occasion to witness the alleged incident with their own eyes. He further submitted that there are materials contradictions in the statement of complainant recorded under Section 154 Cr.P.C as well as before the learned trial Court, which go to the root of the prosecution case.

4. Having heard learned counsel representing the parties and perused the material available on record vis-à-vis reasoning assigned in the impugned judgment, this Court is not persuaded to agree with learned Additional Advocate General that court below failed to appreciate the evidence in its right perspective, rather this Court has no hesitation to conclude that Court below has dealt with each and every aspect of the matter very meticulously and as such, there is no scope of interference.

5. In nutshell, the case of the prosecution is that on 13.10.2004, at about 7.00 AM,