IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH ORDER ORDER OPERATIVE PART UPLOADED ON RESERVED PRONOUNCED PRONOUNCED OR ON ON FULL

05.03.2026 16.03.2026 FULL PRONOUNCED 16.03.2026 State through Railway Protection Force ...Appellant Versus Roshan Lal and another …Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANOOP CHITKARA Present: Ms. Gurmeet Kaur, Senior Panel Counsel for UOI for the appellant.

Ms. Harmanpreet Kaur, Legal Aid Counsel for respondents No.1 and 2.

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ANOOP CHITKARA, J.

FIR No. Dated Police Station Section

03 06.04.2018 RPF, Pathankot 3 of Railway Property (Unlawful Possession Act), 1996 Criminal Case before Trial Court CIS No. COMA/87/2018 CNR No. PBPO030023342018 Date of Decision 06.12.2021

1. Aggrieved by the acquittal of the respondents, by the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Pathankot, the Railway Protection Force has come up before this Court seeking leave to appeal.

2. I have heard counsel for the Railway Protection Force as well as learned legal aid counsel for the respondents, to ascertain whether the matter is worth granting leave to appeal or not and its analysis would lead to the following outcome.

3. The facts of the case are being taken from the impugned judgment dated 06.12.2021. Based on secret information received by SI C.L. Meena that if a raid is conducted in the premises of Arora Traders, then stolen property of the railway can be recovered from its owner. Based on such information, a raid was conducted and the person, who was present in the shop named himself as Roshan Lal i.e., respondent No.1. He disclosed that he is a scrap dealer for 15 years and he had taken the shop on rent from Harbans Lal. After that, even the shop owner Harbans Lal came to the spot and in his presence the investigating officer, started conducting the search. From the heap of scrap, lashing chain and two bearing plates were recovered. Roshan Lal confessed before the Sub Inspector that he had purchased the said chain from railway employee, namely, Parveen Kumar i.e., respondent No.2. After that, the accused was formally arrested, and the case property was recovered and sealed into parcels. The recovered articles were stated to have got identified from the concerned officials, who identify the same to be belonging to Railways.

4. Based on such information, the FIR was registered and on completion of the investigation, the prosecution was launched. In the investigation, the prosecution examined railway officials to identify the property and also inquiry officer PW-7 SI C.L. Meena.

5. The trial court after completing the evidence, recorded the statement of accused under Section 313 CrPC to which the accused pleaded not guilty and stated that they have been implicated at the instance of trade unions. After that, the trial Court acquitted both the respondents as trial Court did not agree with the evidence.

(cid:1)(cid:2) The prosecution has failed to establish the recovery of the alleged stolen items from the shop in question and further, the alleged confessional statement made before a police officer was meaningless. Additionally, there is no credibility of recovery as no independent witness was joined while recovery.

7. I have gone through the reasoning given by the trial court. Based on secret information, there was no authority for Sub Inspector C.L. Meena to search the property without obtaining any search warrant. In the present case, SI conducted the search on his own without a search warrant, even before registration of FIR. There was no FIR on the basis of which he was conducting a search and recovery was effected from property of accused. Thus, the procedure adopted was illegal and contrary to the provisions of the Railways Act. The impugned judgment calls for no interference as reasoning given by the trial Court are cogent and leave to appeal is dismissed. It is clarified that the discussions made in the present matter shall not be used as a precedent, it is for the reason that no detailed arguments were ad