SATISH CHANDRA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application in revision on behalf of one Satish Chandra who has been convicted for the offence punishable Under Section 25 of the Arms Act. The trial court awarded two years rigorous imprisonment but the appellate court reduced it to rigorous imprisonment for one year only. After hearing learned Counsel for the parties and scrutinizing the material on record, I find myself unable to uphold the finding of conviction.

(2.) IT appears that on 26 -10 -1969 dispute between the family members of the family of complainant Sheo Kumar took place in the course of which the wife of Bhairo, a brother of the complainant, received an injury on her head. Bhairo on being exhorted by his wife to take revenge called the Applicant and two other persons. All these persons went to the house of the complainant and then the whole party came to the door of Bhairo where they started talking over the episode of the family quarrel by Bhairo's wife. The prosecution case was that during this discussion tempers flared up and the Applicant suddenly whipped but a country made pistol which was loaded, that the complainant caught hold of the Applicant from behind, over -powered the Applicant and snatched the said pistol and took the Applicant to the police station along with the pistol where a written report was lodged and the said pistol was handed over to the police. After due investigation the Applicant was sent up for trial. At the trial the prosecution examined a number of witnesses of whom complainant Sheo Kumar (P.W.1) and Ram Autar (P.W.6) gave an eye -witness account in regard to the alleged whipping out of the pistol by the Applicant followed by grappling of the Applicant by the complainant and the snatching of the pistol by the complainant from the possession of the Applicant. The trial court accepted the prosecution case and recorded a finding of conviction. The appellate court agreed with the finding of the trial court but reduced the sentence awarded to the Applicant.

(3.) THE pistol in question was produced at the police station by the complainant himself and it is not in controversy that the complainant was highly interested in supporting the assertions made by him in the first information report against the Applicant against whom the complainant could not have entertained any except highly unfriendly feelings. Mohammad Rafiq who was examined as third witness for the prosecution was expected to support the version of the complainant but he refused to do so with the result that he was declared hostile. The case had been investigated by two Sub Inspectors of whom Sri V.N. Shukla, who had conducted the preliminary investigation, was examined as the second prosecution witness. Sri Shri Kant Shukla, who examined the witnesses during the course of investigation and obtained the permission of the District Magistrate for the prosecution of the Applicant, was examined as the fourth witness for the prosecution. The fifth witness was the head constable who deposed about drawing up documents at the police station. Sri Ram Autar, upon whose evidence the courts below have relied as affording corroboration to the evidence given by the complainant was, curiously enough, examined as the last witness for the prosecutions. It is manifest that the prosecution having failed to secure corroboration of the version set forward by complainant Sheo Kumar from Mohammad Rafiq (PW 3), who did not support the prosecution case, Ram Autar was examined as a last resort after the investigating officers and the formal witnesses had been examined and the evidence led by the prosecution was otherwise complete. It must be noticed that the slid Ram Autar was an uncle of the complainant and further that the evidences given by him in regard to the place of scuffle was inconsistent with the evidence given by the complainant in regard to the same. I have no doubt that it the circumstances the finding of the courts below, based as it is upon reliance of the evidence given by Ram Autar suffers from impropriety and must therefore be set aside and this revision must be allowed.