The prosecution must prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, and the absence of prompt FIR registration and key witnesses can impact the case's outcome.

JUDGMENT :

1. At request of learned counsel for the appellant, the present criminal acquittal appeal is treated as revision petition and with the consent of learned counsel for the parties, the same is taken up for final disposal.

2. The judgment of acquittal dated 23.01.2008 rendered by the learned Sessions Judge, Jammu (hereinafter to be referred as 'trial Court') in case titled State v. Om Parkash and others by virtue of which, the respondents have been acquitted by the learned trial Court has been impugned in the present petition primarily on the ground that the learned trial Court has not rightly appreciated the evidence and has jumped to the wrong conclusion thereby acquitting the respondents and further that the respondents had not led any evidence in rebuttal so the prosecution story remains un-rebutted so far as respondents are concerned. It is further stated that the main ground on the basis of which the respondents have been acquitted is that the FIR was not registered on the same day but on the subsequent day.

3. Mr. Vijay Gupta, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners has vehemently argued that learned trial Court has fallen in a grave error of law by observing that the FIR was required to be registered on the same day when the information was received by the concerned Police Station with regard to the commission of offence and further that the statement of the complainant clearly proved the offence under section 436 RPC.

4. Per contra, Mr. R.K.S. Thakur, learned counsel appearing for the respondents submits that evidence cannot be appreciated while deciding the revision petition.

5. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the records.

6. Brief facts necessary for the disposal of the present revision petition are that on 06.04.2003, Vijay Kumar, PW-1 lodged a written report at Police Station Nagrota wherein he alleged that at about 9:30 last night, the respondents set into fire and completely burnt the Kullah owned by PW-2-Govind Singh in which he and Govind Singh were running a Piggery in partnership. Pursuant to this information, FIR bearing No. 57/2003 was registered and during investigation it was established that the respondents were having enmity with the complainant as they used to question as to why he had started the business in the village land reserved as pasture. In this regard, they had also filed a case before the Deputy Commissioner and because of this grudge nurtured by them, they set the Kullah on fire on 05.04.2003 at 9:30. After the conclusion of the investigation charge sheet for commission of offence under Section 436 RPC was filed. The prosecution had cited as many as seven witnesses out of which the prosecution had examined PW-1 Vijay Kumar, PW-2 Govind Singh, PW-3 Brij Dev Singh, PW-5 Mohammad Sarwar (Patwari) and PW-7 Zakir Shaheen (SHO P/S Nagrota). Only these five witnesses were examined. PW-4 Puran Chand was dropped by the prosecution and PW-6, Mohammad Hussain Kohli (ASI) was dead during the trial of the case.

7. The first contention of the learned counsel for the respondents is that the evidence cannot be appreciated while deciding the revision petition. It requires to be noted that no doubt the evidence cannot be appreciated like appellate Court while deciding the revision petition but nonetheless, the Court can look into the evidence so as to determine as to whether the judgment recorded by learned trial Court suffers from any illegality or not as also the same is proper or not.

8. In view of this, this Court deems it fit to have the brief resume of the evidence led by the prosecution.

9. PW-1 Vijay Kumar has stated that on 05.04.2003 at about 9PM when he and Gobind Singh were on their way back from the migrant camp, they saw the accused persons setting their Kullah on fire. They asked the accused not to do so who in turn started pelting stones on them. He further stated that they called army personnel on spot, who tried to extinguish the fire but failed. As a result of fire,