BITTU Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellants have challenged the Judgment and order dtd. 05/07/2022 passed by learned Special Judge, Under MCOC Act, Pune in MCOCA Special Case No.13 of 2016. The Appellant Amar Chauhan in Criminal Appeal No.994 of 2022 was the accused No.1 and the Appellants Bittu Mahi and Dilip Chauhan in Criminal Appeal No.852 of 2022 were the accused Nos.2 and 3 respectively in MCOCA Special Case No.13 of 2016. For the sake of convenience, all the Appellants are referred to by their original status as accused before the trial Court. At the conclusion of the trial, all the accused/appellants were convicted and sentenced as under:

(2.) The prosecution case is that, PW-1 Amit Agarwal was having Pharmaceutical shop. The incident had occurred on 20/10/2015 at about 11.45p.m. It is alleged that, PW-1 was knowing all the accused. They entered his shop. At that time, PW1's father was also present in the shop. The accused No.1 was having a Koyta. He threatened PW-1 and removed money from his person and also from the cash counter. After that, the accused went away by closing the shutter. They threatened PW-1 and his father. They told him not to open the shutter for some time till the accused had left. After some time, PW-1 opened the shutter and then lodged his F.I.R. The investigation was carried out. All the accused were arrested. During investigation, Koyta was recovered at the instance of accused No.1 from his room. The statements of various witnesses were recorded. During investigation it was found that the offence was committed as a part of continuing unlawful activity of an organized crime syndicate headed by accused No.1. Therefore, proposal was sent for applying provisions of The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (hereinafter referred to as 'MCOCA' for short). Approval U/s.23(1) of MCOCA was granted. Thereafter the investigation was taken over by the officer authorized to conduct the investigation under MCOCA. At the conclusion of the investigation, sanction was obtained from the sanctioning authority U/s.23(2) of the MCOCA. The charge-sheet was filed before the special court. According to the prosecution case, there were more than one charge-sheets filed against the organized crime syndicate in respect of the offences which were punishable with three or more years. Therefore, cognizance was taken by the competent Court.

(3.) Learned Special Judge took cognizance of the case and trial was conducted before him. During trial, the prosecution examined 13 witnesses including the first informant/PW-1, neighbouring shop owners, pancha witnesses, two other witnesses who were victims in other offences and the police officers who had conducted the investigation at different stages. At the conclusion of the trial, learned Special Judge believed the evidence led by the prosecution and convicted and sentenced all the accused/appellants as mentioned earlier.