DHARAMBIR Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Challenge in the present criminal revision petition is to the judgment dated 1.12.2006, passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Panipat, whereby the appeal filed by the petitioner challenging his conviction and sentence for the offence punishable under Section 25 of the Arms Act, 1959 (for brevity, the Arms Act ), recorded by learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Panipat, was dismissed.

(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that it has no where been proved by an expert that the knife allegedly recovered from the petitioner was spring actuated and attracted the provisions of Section 25 of the Arms Act; the knife alleged to have been recovered from the petitioner was not sealed by the investigating officer; it has no where emerged on record that after recovery of the alleged knife on 3.11.2000, with whom it remained till it was produced in the Court during the deposition of ASI Sultan Singh (PW1); the alleged recovery of knife was effected from the compartment of a passenger train and concededly more than twenty passengers were present in the compartment, but no one was joined as a witness; and that the explanation during crossexamination by the prosecution witnesses that certain passengers were requested to witness the recovery but none of them opted to join, is not sufficient since the prosecution witnesses had failed to disclose the names and addresses of such passengers. He further points out that as per deposition of the prosecution witnesses, police memo (Ex.PD/1) was sent to the police station for registration of the FIR through Constable Pratap Singh, No. 988, and after registration of the case he came back to the investigating officer at 7:00 p.m., by that time the recovery memo. (Ex.PB), search memo (Ex.PE) and memo of arrest were already prepared, then how number of First Information Report (FIR) appeared on the said documents, which fact would clearly spell out that those documents were prepared while sitting in the police station.

(3.) On the other hand, learned counsel for the State submits that the witnesses had specifically deposed that certain persons were requested to witness the recovery but once they had refused then there was no other way with the police officer to force them to become a witness. The prosecution witnesses had deposed that the knife recovered was spring actuated, therefore, there was no necessity for the prosecution to examine an expert in that regard.