STATE OF H.P. Vs. YASHBIR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present appeal arises out of the judgment dated 31st August, 2000 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bilaspur, District Bilaspur, in Criminal Case No. 248-1 of 1998 titled as State Vs. Yashbir Singh, acquitting the accused of the charged offence.

(2.) AS per the case of the prosecution, complainant, Pawan Kumar (PW-1) was having his tailoring shop in the main market of Bilaspur town, H.P. and the accused had given his clothes for stitching. On 7.7.1998 at about 7.45 P.M the accused had gone to purchase vegetables from the market when he 1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? inquired from the complainant, whether his clothes had been stitched or not when the accused told that one shirt had been stitched at that the accused abused him and gave blows with fist and kicks. The occurrence was witnessed by Balak Ram, Mehar Singh and Ramesh Chand. Matter was reported to the police and FIR (Ext. PW-7/A) was registered with Police Station, Bilaspur Sadar, under Section 32 and 504 IPC. The complainant was got medically examined through Dr. D.K.Arora (PW-6) and Dr. D.R.Sehgal (PW-8) who prepared the MLCs (Ext.PW-6/A and Ext.PW-8/A) and found that the complainant had suffered grievous injury.

(3.) IN order to prove its case the prosecution examined 8 witnesses and the statement of the accused under Section 313 Cr.P.C. was also recorded. The Court below held that the prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt and consequently acquitted the accused of the charged offences for the reasons that the testimony of PW-1 and his brother PW-4 did not inspire confidence in view of the fact that their version were not corroborated by the independent witnesses, one of whom did not even support the case of the prosecution.