IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.620 OF 2019 RAMESHWAR LAXMAN DILWALE The State of Maharashtra .. Appellant Vs.

Digitally signed by Shailendra Prabhakar Dixit & Ors. .. Respondents RAMESHWAR LAXMAN DILWALE …

Date: 2025.11.19 14:04:52 +0530 Mr. K. V. Saste, APP for the Appellant-State.

None for the Respondents.

...

CORAM : SHREE CHANDRASHEKHAR, CJ &

GAUTAM A. ANKHAD, J DATE : 6^th OCTOBER 2025.

P.C. :

To challenge the judgment dated 26^th June 2015 in Sessions Case No.774 of 2013, the State of Maharashtra has filed this Criminal Acquittal Appeal under section 378(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure r/w Rule 19 of Chapter XXVI of the Bombay High Court Appellate Side Rules, 1960.

2. In the Sessions Court, Shailendra Prabhakar Dixit, Nilesh Vijay Vairat, Arvind Dagadu Varule and Shivshankar Rajendra Swami faced the charges framed for committing the offence under sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 307, 324, 504 and 506 r/w 34 of the Indian Penal Code and under section 37(1) r/w 135 of the Bombay Police Act.

3. The brief facts of the prosecution are that on 14^th July 2006, the informant, namely, Raiesh Rafiq Shaikh along with Soyab Bagwan and Abrar Shaikh were going from Satara to Pune in a truck bearing No. MH-04 BU-4815 which was carrying cattles. Around 6:00 A.M. when they arrived near Katraj Bridge, Narhe Ambegaon village, 10-15 people approached the truck and started abusing them. After inquiring from them, the assailants started assualting them. On being pulled out of the truck by a man wearing Rudraksh mala, Abrar was given a blow on the head with a chopper. On sustaining the bleeding injury, the informant took Abrar to Bharti Vidhyapeeth Hospital where he was later referred to Sassoon Hospital and to Ruby Hospital. Later on, the informant lodged a First Information Report in the Police Station. This is the case of prosecution that during the course of investigation, the Investigating Officer recorded statement of Soyab Bagwan, recovered hockey stick along with the chopper from the accused and the panchnama of the spot was drawn. After investigation, the Investigating Officer filed a charge-sheet against the accused persons and the case was committed to the Court of Sessions, Pune as the offences alleged were exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions.

4. During the trial, the prosecution examined fourteen witnesses and produced 61 material articles to support the charges framed against the accused persons. In the trial, P.W. 4-Madhav Kale, P.W. 5-Avinash Shelke, P.W. 7-Ramdas Bokade, P.W. 8-Yogesh Kadam and P.W. 9-Sanjay Sonawane did not support the case of prosecution and were declared hostile by the Sessions Judge.

5. The Sessions Judge recorded that Nayab Tehsildar who deposed in the Court as P.W. 11 admitted in his cross-examination that he did not put any person with a beard, as “dummy person”, for the Test Identification Parade. It was admitted by him that he had not followed the necessary requirements for conducting the Test Identification Parade. The testimony of P.W. 11 reads as under :-

“9] It is true that I have not chosen to the person having beard as a dummy person. Today I cannot say which dummy person has wore the suit pant and shirt or paijama and shirt. It is true that out of 12 persons none has wore "Kurta". It is not true that accused Shailendra was having beard and he wore the Kurta. Out of four accused none of the accused wore Rudraksha Mala. According to me out of these four accused nobody has beard. Prior to this identification, I have conducted six identification parade. I have not chosen 40 years old aged person at the time of identification parade of accused no. 1 Shailendra. We have taken panch witnesses from the person who used to visit our office for their work. Today I cannot say for what purpose the panch witness Milind Bhokre and Heram Joshi have visited to our office. We did not make any arrangement for changing cloths of the accused at the time of i