Possession of stolen goods shortly after theft creates a presumption of guilt, which the accused must rebut with credible evidence.

ORDER :

1. The instant revision petition has been filed by the petitioner herein against the judgment and order dated 25.06.2012 passed by the Court of Sub Judge (Judicial Magistrate 1st Class) Batote (for short “the trial court”) and judgment and order dated 14.06.2014 passed by the court of Principal Sessions Judge Ramban (for short “the appellate court”)

2. The facts emerging from the record would reveal that a charge sheet came to be laid before the trial court against the petitioner herein being an accused therein for commission of offence under section 379 RPC, whereupon charges for commission of the said offence came to be framed against the petitioner herein by the trial court on 13.10.2009 to which, the petitioner did not plead guilty and claimed to be tried, whereafter, the trial court proceeded with the trial of the case and in the process examined 06 prosecution witnesses out of 07 listed witnesses being PW-1 Lakhmir Singh (complainant), PW-2 Puran Singh, PW-3 Daulat Singh, PW-4 Dhian Singh, PW-5 Mohd. Yaseen and PW-6 Janayat Ali (Investigating Officer). After the closure of the prosecution evidence, the trial court, upon recording the statement of the petitioner herein under section 342 Cr.P.C, afforded an opportunity to the petitioner herein to produce defence evidence, in consequence whereof, the petitioner herein produced a defence witness, namely, Sanjay Kumar.

3. The trial court upon conclusion of the trial of the case and after considering the facts and circumstances of the case, inasmuch as, the evidence available on record convicted and sentenced the petitioner herein in terms of judgment and order dated 25.06.2012 directing the petitioner to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year with a fine of Rs. 5000/- for the commission of the charged offence under section 379 RPC, providing further that in default of payment of the fine, the petitioner herein shall undergo further rigorous imprisonment for a period of one month.

4. The petitioner herein feeling aggrieved of the aforesaid conviction and sentence dated 25.06.2012 preferred an appeal before the appellate court on 09.07.2012 which appeal came to be dismissed by the appellate court in terms of judgment and order dated 14.06.2014 upholding the judgment and order of the trial court dated 25.06.2012.

5. The petitioner herein being dissatisfied with the dismissal of the appeal, inasmuch as, the impugned judgments and orders dated 25.06.2012 and 14.06.2014 has preferred the instant revision petition against the aforesaid judgments and orders of the courts below and has assailed the same on the following grounds:

“i) That both the judgments dated 25-06-2012 and 14-06-2014 are in direct conflict with facts, circumstances and record of the case of the petitioner and as such required to be set aside by the Hon’ble Court on that ground alone.

ii) That the learned Sub-Judge (JMIC) Batote has failed to appreciate the evidence of the prosecution in right perspective but in fact has misinterpreted the same while passing the judgment impugned and in fact has not given any weightage to the cross examination of the prosecution witnesses.

iii) That the entire evidence of the prosecution is full of major and fatal contradiction which goes to the root of the prosecution case. The net result thereof being that the case of the prosecution is rendered gravely suspicious and not proved at all.

iv) That in passing the judgments impugned herein the trial court had relied upon hearsay evidence which fact is manifested from the testamentary of many prosecution witnesses Pwl Lakhmir Singh the alleged complainant of the case candidly admitted that the accused was not brought to him by the security officer and he lodged the complaint on 17-07-2009 on the basis of information received on telephone on the basis of which complaint FIR No. 48/2009 was lodged. Since the complainant never saw the accused nor he saw the stolen property in custody of the petitioner as such the entire te