SURESH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the learned Counsel for the appellants and the learned State Public Prosecutor.

(2.) THE facts of the case, as alleged by the prosecution, are as follows:

(3.) WHILE the learned State Public Prosecutor would vehemently seek to justify the judgment and would contend that the injury having been established, in the sense that the victim was admitted in a hospital and was an inpatient for nine days, is testimony to the effect that he was attacked with a weapon and had therefore suffered an injury. The presence of the accused having been spoken to by the injured victim himself and duly supported by three witnesses, cannot be brushed aside. The suggestion that the witnesses, PWs. 2, 3, and 5 had not actually witnessed the accused attacking the victim is a presumption and though they may not have seen the blows being delivered to the victim, their immediate presence on hearing the cries of the victim, cannot negate the case of the prosecution. The delay in lodging the complaint and the prosecution of the case by presenting the First Information Report before the court of the Magistrate is not fatal to the case of the prosecution. The Medical Practitioner, who had initially examined the victim, having tendered evidence, in support of the medical records, would not enable the appellants to claim that the entire episode was imagined and a false case was sought to be foisted against the accused. The hospital records could not have been manipulated nor concocted and it is an independent source of information as to the injury caused to the victim and the treatment that he had received. And therefore, the learned Prosecutor would submit that even though the maximum punishment attracted was much more, the court has been extremely liberal in restricting it to the period of punishment that it has imposed and would submit that there is no warrant for interference.