Appellate courts should not overturn acquittal findings unless the trial court’s conclusion is perverse or erroneous.

O R D E R

The application for grant of leave to appeal under Section 372 of Cr.P.C.

is moved by the prosecution seeking leave to appeal against the judgment of acquittal dated 31/01/2022 delivered in Sessions Trial No.SC(ATR)/191/2018, by Special Judge, SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocity) Katni (M.P.).

2. By the aforesaid judgment, respondents No.1 & 2 were acquitted for the charges leveled against them under Sections 302 /34 & 201 of IPC read with Sections 3(2)(v) of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Act .

3. Prosecution story in brief is that deceased Ajay Kori used to work as vendor at Railway Station Katni. He went missing after 7:30 PM in the evening of 29/09/2018. Ramkumar (PW-1) brother of the deceased made effort to trace his brother (since deceased) and later on, on 01/10/2018 they came to know that a dead body was found near Bailat Ghat and the dead body was identified to be of deceased. Initially the prosecution registered Merg intimation and during course of investigation, respondents Vinod Burman and Pappu @ Devendra Singh Solanki were implicated on the ground that the deceased had inclination towards niece of respondent No.2 Pappu @ Devendra Singh Solanki and as a result of which both the accused/respondents committed murder of the deceased. Thereafter they were prosecuted under the aforementioned charges. However, trial Court ultimately acquitted the respondents while holding that the prosecution could not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, thus, the same ensued in the delivery of impugned judgment.

4. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that this appeal preferred by the brother of the deceased namely Ram Kumar Kori (PW-1) and has submitted that the findings as arrived by the Court below in paragraph 62 of the judgment are erroneous where the Court came to the conclusion that the prosecution has failed to establish the factum of motive.

4.1 Learned counsel for the appellant also submits that the trial Court ought to have appreciated the testimony of Umesh Nishad @ Pintoo (PW-21) as his testimony is ample enough to establish the motive which was ultimately made basis for commission of the offence at the instance of respondents by which chain of circumstances was fully completed, therefore, accused could not have been let off and thus trial Court fell into error by not appreciating the evidence based on record, therefore, the impugned judgment of acquittal deserves to be set aside.

5. We have heard learned counsel for the appellant at length and perused the record.

6. There is admittedly no eye witness to the incident and the entire case was sought to be established on the basis of memorandum contained in Exhibit P/10, P/11 and P/13. The Court dealt with these memorandum exhaustively and while holding that there was no discovery of any fact and those memorandum were inadmissible to the extent of Section 27 of IPC , thus arrived at a finding that the memorandum contained in Exhibits P/10 & P/11, were not enough to convict the respondents.

6.1 It is also important to note that even the testimony of Umesh Nishad (PW-21) is considered in its entirety, he deposed that the deceased had expressed in the state of insobriety that he had amorous inclination towards niece of accused Pappu @ Devendra as he likes her. This testimony on its face value, if taken into consideration, in no way connect the respondents with the commission of crime. Apparently, there is failure on the part of the prosecution to complete the chain of circumstantial evidence so adviced, however, in the case in hand, even circumstantial evidence, have no credibility, therefore, in our considered opinion the Court below did not commit any error in acquitted the respondents.

7. It is settled princip