JAYPRAKASH Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present appeals have been filed by the appellants-accused under Section 374 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, against the same judgment and order dated 12.10.2018 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, City Civil Court No. 11, Ahmedabad City in Sessions Case No. 327 of 2016, whereby the appellants-accused were convicted for the offence under Sections 489(B) and 489(C) read with Section 120(B) of the Indian Penal Code (herein after referred to as "IPC" for short). By the impugned judgment, under Section 489(B) read with Section 120(B) of the IPC, the appellants were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of ten years each and ordered to pay Rs. 10,000/- fine each and in default of payment of fine, rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months each was imposed and under Section 489(C) read with Section 120(B) of the IPC, the appellants were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of seven years each and ordered to pay Rs. 5,000/- fine each and in default of payment of fine, rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months each was imposed. All the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

(2.) The case of the prosecution in short is that on prior information on 06.05.2013 at about 14:00 hours, near Himalaya Mall, Drive-in Cinema Road, Ahmedabad, accused No. 2 was allegedly found in possession of 199 counterfeit currency notes of the denomination of Rs. 500/- i.e. Rs. 99,500/- and accused No. 1 was allegedly found in possession of 401 counterfeit currency notes of the denomination of Rs. 1000/-, i.e. Rs. 4,01,000/- and after necessary procedure, they were arrested and offence was registered, investigation was started and on completion of investigation, charge-sheet was filed by Mr. R.S. Suvera, Police Sub-Inspector, Special Operation Group, Crime Branch, Ahmedabad City for the offence under Section 489(B) and 489(C) read with Section 120(B) of the IPC against the accused No. 2 and accused No. 1-Rajvirsing Ajitsing Jat (Punjabi) co-accused of Criminal Appeal No. 1842 of 2019 in the Court of City Sessions, Ahmedabad which was registered and numbered as Sessions Case No. 327 of 2016.

(3.) Learned advocate Mr. Rajesh M. Agrawal for the appellants-accused submits that since the raid came to be conducted upon the secret information received by the Police Officials, none of the independent witnesses have supported the case of prosecution. He further submits that in view of clear admission of Investigating Officer-P.W.9-Shri R.S. Suvera, more particularly in paragraph-12, wherein he clearly and categorically admitted that neither the investigating agency has interrogated or collected any evidence as to what sort of articles the appellants-accused were going to purchase with the said alleged fake currency notes, nor they have collected any evidence as to whether the appellants-accused were going to circulate the said fake currency notes in the market. He further submits that in absence of such independent evidence, they have believed the offence solely based upon the confession of the appellants-accused and therefore, according to his submission, the appellants-accused could not have been found guilty for commission of offence punishable under Section 489(B) of the IPC as no linking evidence is available to link the appellant-accused for circulating or using the said currency notes. He further fairly conceded that that since the appellants-accused have already undergone sentence for about more than 6 years, he would not contend so far as other aspects of the case is concerned, if the sentence imposed upon the appellants-accused may be reduced to the extent of sentence they have already undergone as the provisions of law has not provided any minimum sentence and present appellants-accused are having no criminal history. He further contends that since the appellants-accused were found in possession of about 401 currency notes in denomination of Rs. 1,000/- and 199 currency notes in denomination of Rs. 500/- valuing nearly Rs. 5 lakhs and as the appellants-accused are having no criminal history, in that view of the matter, the sentence they have already undergone may be considered to be sufficient punishment which commensurate with the offence of possession found to be established against them.