Testimony of an injured witness holds significant evidentiary value as such witnesses are unlikely to falsely implicate others while sparing the real perpetrator. Courts must extract truth from depositions, discarding partial falsities rather than dismissing entire testimonies based on the principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

JUDGMENT

VIMAL KUMAR YADAV, J.

1. The acquittal of the accused persons in case FIR No. 241/2017 (Ex. P1) registered with police of PS Inder Puri under section 307/34 of Indian Penal Code (‘IPC’) 1860, did not go down well with the Prosecuting Agency, therefore, State invoked section 378 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (Cr.P.C.) and filed the instant appeal (Crl.L.P.70/2022).

2. While impugning the judgment dated 31.01.2020, it is asserted that the learned Trial Court fell into error by attaching undue importance to the contradictions while ignoring the fact that the victim had sustained injuries which fell into the definition of ‘dangerous’ as opined by the Doctor.

However before adverting intensively into the grounds of appeal, the indispensable facts are required to be gone into.

3. On the intervening night of 19th – 20th October 2017, an incident was reported to the police of PS Inder Puri and the said information was reduced into writing as DD No.45A assigned to SI Sher Singh (PW-8) and Ct. Mitter Sain (PW-5), who were on emergency duty from 8pm to 8am, reached at the spot where they came to know that the injured has already been moved to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi.

4. The victim was ‘unfit for statement’ as he was being operated upon when police reached there. Post his operation, the victim / complainant Varadh Raj was found fit for statement. The statement was recorded and rukka was handed over to Const. Mitter Sain by SI Sher Singh which resulted in the registration of FIR No. 241/2017 (Ex. P-1).

5. Two eye witnesses i.e. Arun (PW-3) and Shanker (PW-2) also met the police team at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and at their instance, site plan (Ex.PW3/A) was prepared and their statements were also recorded, which conjointly with the statement of victim / injured brought in the involvement of three persons i.e. Respondent no.1 Ramesh @ Udai @ Udda, Respondent no. 2 Sonu and Respondent no. 3 Rahul. First of all, Ramesh @ Udai @ Udda was arrested and disclosure statement (Ex.PW5/C) made by him led to the recovery of weapon of offence i.e. knife from the park near the place of occurrence.

6. The requisites of the investigation like arrest of accused Ramesh @ Udai @ Udda, preparation of the site plan, sketch of the knife (Ex.PW5/D) etc. were carried out. Subsequently, statements of the eye witnesses i.e. Arun (PW-3) and Shanker (PW-2) were got recorded under section 164 Cr.P.C. too. A charge-sheet was filed in which the two co-accused persons/Respondent no. 2 Sonu and Respondent No. 3 Rahul were kept in Column No. 12 therein of the chargesheet, so to say that Prosecuting Agency did not find sufficient evidence to chargesheet and prosecute them. However, the Court suo motu took cognizance of the offence against Sonu and Rahul as well and summoned them alongwith accused Ramesh @ Udai.

7. To the charges framed under section 307/34 IPC, all the three accused/Respondents i.e. Ramesh @ Udai @ Udda, Sonu and Rahul pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

8. The trial traversed through examination of 9 witnesses and statements of all the three accused persons whereby they had admitted certain documents filed by the prosecution i.e. FIR (Ex.P-1), certificate under section 65B (Ex.P-2), DD No. 45A (Ex.P-3) and proceedings under section 164 Cr.P.C. (Ex.P-4). Consequent