STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. JANNATHBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON hearing the learned Addl. SPP and the learned advocate who represents the respondent accused, the first question that we address to ourselves is as to whether an appeal in this case was at all justified. We shall indicate our reasons for this but what we need to point out is that since this appeal was not only filed but was unfortunately admitted, we have been required to go through the rigors of examining the record threadbare for purposes of, with the assistance of the two learned Counsel, finding out as to whether in the first instance the order of acquittal was at all unjustified and secondly, whether there is enough evidence on record to reverse that order and substitute it with one of conviction. The facts undoubtedly are very distressing in so far as a young girl has been horribly disfigured by throwing a large quantity of very concentrated acid on her face, the body was almost unrecognisable and the burn injuries were so severe that the girl has died shortly after admission to hospital. Secondly, after this gory incident the injured girl was thrown on the railway track in a semi-dead condition in the hope that the evidence of the crime would disappear and that it would appear to be a case of an accident or a suicide. That explains the prosecution having invoked Sec. 201 IPC on the ground that an attempt was made to destroy the evidence of the offence. It is very true that special consideration needs to be accorded to cases wherein such, atrocities take place, particularly where women or young girls are concerned. Unfortunately, the wrong approach appears to be that wherever the victim is a person of either of these two categories, mechanically, an appeal against acquittal must be flied. What is overlooked is that there may be instances where despite the best efforts on whatsoever other reasons, the evidence before the trial court in support of the charges is extremely weak or as has happened in the present instance, is virtually bordering on zero. With a record of this type the Court is absolutely helpless and beyond recounting the various prosecution witnesses and heads of evidence, the learned Trial Judge is left with no option except to acquit the accused. Once this process is over. The State must in good grace accept, that nothing more can be done. Inspite of this position, mechanically appeals are filed challenging the order of acquittal and we do concede that there is a heavy duty caste on the High Court, both as far as the administration of justice is concerned and as far as the accused are concerned, that the Court must do a very careful scrutiny of the record before entertaining an appeal against acquittal.

(2.) VERY briefly stated, we need to remind the authorities who are in charge of doing the scrutiny before recommending an appeal against acquittal, that the law is very clear in so far as the presumption of innocence which obtains in criminal trials gets totally reinforced, as has been pointed out by the Supreme Court, through an order of acquittal. It is very true that, particularly in this class of cases, every order of acquittal is required to be carefully reviewed, but what we are at pains to point out is, that in those of the cases where on a review of the order, the record indicates that the acquittal was more fully justified, it would be against the interests of justice to even recommend an appeal against acquittal. Unfortunately, in the scheme of things once the authorities of the Law Department take a decision that an appeal is required to be filed and once a resolution is passed, there is no option left except for such an appeal to be presented. A small handicap does come up before the High Court at the stage of admission in so far as invariably the record is not before the Court and from the limited material available there are times when an unjustified appeal against acquittal would still slip through. This is a total miscarriage of justice, because the admission of such an appeal particularly where the charge is serious, could entail re-arrest of the accused and thereafter since these are non-custody appeals they come up after a considerable lapse of time, the virtual Democles sword continuously hang over the accused, the accused is also required to execute bail bonds and could possibly be shattered because of this and at the end of this lengthy procedure the entire exercise comes to naught.

(3.) WE are reiterating these aspects because the present ease is one in which the evidence against the 4 accused viz. , the mother and other family members, who were put up for trial before to the Sessions Court on very serious charges of murder and causing disappearance of evidence is absolutely zero. After a very careful scrutiny of the entire record with the able assistance of both the learned Counsel before us we find that there is one solitary circumstance that the prosecution alleges viz. , that on the previous evening the deceased girl Raziya was seen in the company of A1 who is none other than her own mother. This has been perverted into a last seen together circumstances and thereafter the prosecution has spun out the story that the character of the deceased was suspect and therefore, that her own family members out of embarrassment decided to finish her off. No evidence has been led in support of this very grave allegation and we find that in totality, the learned Trial Judge was right in holding that neither of the two charges have been established and that the accused are liable to be acquitted.