Interference in acquittal judgments is only warranted when compelling reasons exist; the presumption of innocence is reinforced by acquittal.

Judgment

18/01/2024

The petitioner has filed the present criminal revision petition being aggrieved by the judgment dt. 10.02.2020 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bhadra, District Hanumangarh in Appeal No. 14/2017 whereby, the appellate court rejected the appeal and upheld the judgment dated 21.04.2017 passed by Judicial Magistrate, Bhadra, District Hanumangarh whereby, the learned Judge acquitted the respondent No.2 charges for offence under Section 458, 323 IPC.

Briefly, the facts of the case are that the complainant submitted a written report before the Police Station Bhirani, stating therein that there is dispute going on between him and accused Mehtab and Bhoop Singh. On 17.08.2009, the accused Mehtab, Bhoop Singh and his family members came and attacked him with deadly weapons axe and lathi.

On this report, the FIR No. 213/2009 was registered for offence under Sections 458, 323 IPC and the police started investigation. After investigation, the police filed challan against the accused Mehtab. Thereafter, charges were framed against the respondents for offence under Section 458, 323 IPC. The accused respondent denied the charges and claimed trial.

The prosecution in support of its case examined eight witnesses and various documents were exhibited. The statement of accused under Section 313 Cr.P.C. was recorded.

After conclusion of trial, the court of Judicial Magistrate acquitted the respondent from offence under Sections 458 and 323 IPC vide judgment dated 21.04.2017. Feeling aggrieved, the petitioner preferred an appeal before the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bhadra, however, the same came to be dismissed by the appellate Court vide judgment dated 10.02.2020.

Learned counsel for the petitioner argued that the Courts below without going through the entire record and evidence acquitted the respondents for 458, 323 IPC. It is argued that the courts below have discarded the evidence of petitioner granting the accused benefit of doubt. Learned counsel failed to consider that there is always possibility of minor contradictions in the statement of witnesses but same cannot be a ground to acquit the accused. Thus the judgment of the Courts below are liable to be set aside and the matter may be remanded back to the trial court for passing fresh order.

I have heard the counsels for the parties and gone through the material on record.

From the evidence on record so also finding arrived by the learned trial court, it appears that the learned trial court has acquitted the accused respondent on the basis of material contradictions in the statement of the witnesses. The learned Trial court came to the conclusion that the prosecution has failed to prove that that the accused respondent had caused the injuries to the injured. In the opinion of this Court, the findings given by the trial Court and appellate are perfectly justified and there is no illegality in the judgment of acquittal by the trial Court.

In the case of 'Mrinal Das & others v. The State of Tripura, : 2011(9) SCC 479,' decided on September 5, 2011, the Hon'ble Supreme Court, after looking into many earlier judgments, has laid down parameters, in which interference can be made in a judgment of acquittal, by observing as under:

“An order of acquittal is to be interfered with only when there are "compelling and substantial reasons", for doing so. If the order is "clearly unreasonable", it is a compelling reason for interference. When the trial Court has ignored the evidence or misread the material evidence or has ignored material documents like dying declaration/report of ballistic experts etc., the appellate court is competent to reverse the decision of the trial Court depending on the materials placed.

Similarly, in the case of State of Rajasthan v. Shera Ram alias Vishnu Dutta, reported (2012) 1 SCC 602,' the Hon'ble Supreme Court has observed as under:--

“A judgment of acquittal has the obvious consequence of granting freedom to the accused. This Court has taken