ABHIMANYU ALIAS ABINA DAS Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) UPON hearing Mr. Mund, the learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr. Das, the learned Additional Standing Counsel, I find that the order of conviction recorded by the trial court and maintained by the learned Second Additional Sessions Judge cannot be sustained. The two petitioners stood charged under section 394 of the Indian Penal Code for having committed robbery in a Math house of which P. W. 4, the sister of the first -informant (P. W. 1), was the occupant, during the night of the 23rd/24th May, 1978, in the course of which, they had assaulted P. W. 3, the son of P. W. 1, who was then staying in that house and P. W. 4 and removed valuable articles. Of the nine witnesses examined for the prosecution P. Ws. 2 to 5 had figured as witnesses to the occurrence. P. Ws. 2 and 5 was the field servants of P. W. 4. After receiving information about the occurrence, P. W. 1 visited the Village of P. W. 4 on the day following, took steps for the madical treatment of his sister (P. W. 4) and his son (P. W. 3) and then lodged the first informantion report on the basis of which investigation was taken up and ultimately the petitioners were prosecuted.

(2.) APART from the interestedness of the witnesses and the contradictions in their evidence in the court and in their statements in the course of investigation in material particulars which need not be catalogued, I find that the trial and appellate courts took no due notice of the fact that the first information report had been lodged in this case as late as on the 26th May, 1978. No reasonable explanation had been offered by P. W. 1 in this regard. The importance of the first information report has been emphasised in AIR 1973 Supreme Court 501 Thulia Kali v. The State of Tamil Nadu As has been observed therein, the first information report in a criminal case is an extremely vital and valuable piece of evidence for the purpose of corroborating the oral evidence adduced at the trial. The importance of the report can hardly be over -estimated from the standpoint of the accused. The object of insisting upon prompt lodging of the report to the police in respect of commission of an offence is to obtain early information regarding the circumstances in which the crime was committed, the names of the actual culprits and the part played by them as well as the names of the eye -witnesses present at the scene of occurrence. Delay in lodging the first information report quite often results in embellishment which is a creature of after thought. On account of delay, the report not only gets bereft of the advantage of spontaneity, danger creeps in of the introduction of coloured version, exaggerated account or concocted story as a result of deliberation and consultation.

(3.) IN the result, I would allow the revision and set aside the order of conviction and sentences passed against the petitioners.