In an appeal against acquittal, the appellate court shall not interfere with the judgment of the trial court unless there is manifest illegality or perversity in the findings, or the evidence conclusively proves the guilt of the accused.

1. This appeal has been filed by the appellant – State under Section 378(1)(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Code’) against the impugned judgment and the order passed by the learned Special Judge and 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Jamnagar (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Trial Court’) in Special (Electricity) Case No. 138 of 2015 dated 11.12.2015, whereby, the learned Trial Court has acquitted the respondent from the offence punishable under Sections 135 of the Electricity Act, 2003 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’).

1.1 The respondent is hereinafter referred to as ‘the accused’ as he stood in the original case, for the sake of convenience, clarity and brevity.

2. The relevant facts leading to filing of the present appeal are as under:

2.1. On 23.02.2006, H.H.Vairu, Junior Engineer, Darbargad and Assistant Lineman N.J.Shukla went for checking electricity connections and checked the residential house of the accused situated in Abbas Alamdar Chowk, Dhararnagar-2, Opposite School No.40 in Jamnagar and found that though the accused was not a consumer of electricity, had joined a yellow and black color service wire directly to the low tension line of the PGVCL electricity pole and was consuming 0.505 kilowatt of electricity and had committed a theft of electricity of Rs.56,489.83 paisa. The complainant Sureshbhai Mohanlal Kheersaria, Deputy Engineer, City-2 Division, Jamnagar filed a complaint under section 135 of the Indian Electricity Act at the GEB Police Station, Rajkot Zone, which came to be registered as GEB Police Station, Rajkot Zone II- CR No.150 of 2007.

2.2. After registration of the FIR, the investigation was carried out by the concerned Investigating Officer and after having sufficient material against the accused, the chargesheet came to be filed before the concerned jurisdictional Magistrate. As the case was exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions, after completion of the process under Section 209 of the Cr.P.C., the case was committed to the Sessions Court and the same was registered as Special (Electricity) Case No. 138 of 2015.

2.3. The accused was duly served with the summons and the accused appeared before the learned Trial Court and it was verified whether the copies of all the papers were provided to the accused as per the provisions of Section 207 of the Code. A charge was framed by the learned Trial Court at Exh.6 and the statement of the accused was recorded at Exh.7, wherein, the accused denied all the contents of the charge and the entire evidence of the prosecution was taken on record. The prosecution examined 05 witnesses and produced 12 documentary evidences in support of the case.

2.4. After the closing pursis was submitted by the learned APP at Exh.27, the further statement of the accused under Section 313 of the Code was recorded wherein the accused denied the evidence. After hearing the arguments of the learned APP and learned advocate for the accused and after perusing the documents on record, the learned Trial Court, by the impugned judgment and order, acquitted the accused for the offence punishable under Sections 135 of the Act.

3. Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned judgment and order passed by the learned Trial Court, the appellant – State has filed the present appeal mainly stating that the impugned judgment and order passed by the learned Trial Court is contrary to law, evidence on record and principles of justice. The learned Trial Court