STATE OF ORISSA Vs. MUKUNDA MAJHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE State in this appeal has called in question the order of acquittal passed by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Nuapada in 2 (b) C.C. No. 9 of 1995 (T.R. No. 151 of 1995) acquitting the respondent of the charge under section 27(1)(a) of Orissa Forest Act and section 27 of Wild Life Protection Act. Prosecution case is that P.W. 1, the forest guard during his visit to the Pandripani Reserve Forest found the respondent to have been forcibly possessing twenty acres of land there and to have ploughed the same. So the respondent was made to face the prosecution for commission of offence under section 27(1)(a) of Orissa Forest Act and under section 27 of Wild Life Protection Act.

(2.) DURING trial the respondent took the plea of denial.

(3.) LEARNED Standing Counsel submits that the Court below ought to have believed the oral evidence of P.W. 1 who is none other than the forest guard of Pandripani beat house that the land over which the respondent had ploughed was within the reserve forest area and simply because the notification in that regard was not proved, the Court below ought not to have discarded the case of the prosecution.