STATE OF UTTARANCHAL Vs. ASHOK KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY the judgment and order under appeal, the respondent has been acquitted of the charge of having committed an offence punishable under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code. In course of trial, the respondent faced a charge to the effect that he attempted to commit murder of the victim. This charge was framed on the basis of a police report filed after conclusion of investigation pursuant to a first information report lodged by the father of the victim. In that respondent was named. It was said in the first information report that the respondent has caused such assault upon the victim with such a vicious sharp edged weapon that the accused intended to commit murder of the son of the informant. However, the first information report was lodged 38 days after the incident took place. In order to prove the charge, the informant, his wife and his son (victim) deposed. The victim stated that he was lying on the bed by the side of his father and mother when the respondent came and he thought that the respondent wanted to sit, but the respondent took out a vicious sharp edged weapon and struck him once, and fled. It was stated by him that no sooner he received the injury, he cried, and with the cry his father and mother woke up, by that time the respondent had reached the door, and when an attempt was made to apprehend him, he had already gone. P.W.5 stated that he was sleeping on the roof of his house, when he heard a cry coming from the house of the informant, and accordingly, he got up and saw that the respondent is coming out from the house of the informant with a blood soaked weapon in his hand, and that he saw him through the light of a torch. The informant deposed that after the incident took place, in the manner indicated by the victim, he had taken the victim to Roorkee hospital, whereupon he was referred to Meerut hospital, and there at Meerut hospital he admitted the victim and the victim remained there for 22 days, and only thereafter he had an opportunity to file a first information report which he attempted to file, but since the same was not accepted, he had to go to the higher authority in the police, only then the first information report was lodged. In order to corroborate the statement so given by the informant, the medical examination report conducted at Roorkee hospital was produced, and the doctor who conducted the said examination was also produced as witness. The report did not indicate that the doctor attending the patient or the hospital, referred the patient to any other hospital. The doctor, who examined the victim, in course of his deposition did not say that the victim was referred to any other hospital. The prosecution failed to bring on record any evidence to corroborate the contention of the informant that the victim was admitted in Meerut hospital and remained there for 22 days. In the circumstances, there was no just reason for lodging the first information report 38 days after the incident, in as much as, there is no evidence to suggest that the informant for having had shifted his residence for a temporary period to a distant place was prevented from lodging first information report at an early date. In his deposition P.W.5 stated that he disclosed his version of the story, as given in course of evidence, to the police, 25 days from the date of the incident. In other words, the police alleged to have recorded statement under Section 161, twenty five days from the date of incident within which time, admittedly, no information was lodged with the police pertaining to the incident in question, and accordingly, question of starting an investigation in pursuance therewith or recording any statement under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure did not arise. In the circumstances, principally, the trial court has failed to accept the prosecution story that it was the respondent who perpetuated the crime alleged against him. We are not being persuaded to take a different view taken by the learned trial court. We, accordingly, dismiss the appeal.