STATE OF J&K Vs. BANSI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Challenge in this Acquittal Appeal has been thrown to the judgment dtd. 18/10/2012 passed by the learned Principal Sessions Judge, Kishtwar (hereinafter referred to as 'trial court') in File No. 13/Sessions vide FIR No. 88/2002 of Police Station Kishtwar for offence under Sec. 302 of the Ranbir Penal Code, 1989 (RPC for short), vide which respondent has been acquitted of the charges.

(2.) Shorn of verbosity, the prosecution case is that on 17/6/2002 ASI Jagdish Raj, Officer Incharge of Police Post Shalimar, who had been deputed with pilgrimage of Sader Mata, reported back in the Police Station, Kishtwar that during the pilgrimage duty, when he along with STF and VDC were returning from Shandri and reached at Hing Dhar Kuntwara, some un-known militants resorted to indiscriminate firing, which was retaliated by the police party and during the cross firing two VDC members and two civilians were killed on the spot and when they reached at Akra, they found dead body of Ahmed Ullah s/o. Abdul Gani Butt R/o. Nag Bhatna, an employee of PHE, who was shot dead by SPO Bansi Lal No. 20606 with service SLR.

(3.) On receipt of this report, FIR came to be registered for offences under Ss. 302 of the Ranbir Penal Code, 1989 (RPC for short) and 7/27 of the Arms Act (A. Act for short) and investigation came to be vogue. During investigation, the investigating agency took the dead body in its custody, got postmortem conducted, seized clothes of the deceased, arrested the accused, recovered and seized one SLR rifle along with magazines from the respondent/accused. The weapon of offence was sealed and sent for chemical examination to FSL. The reports of FSL and the postmortem were obtained, statements of the witnesses were recorded u/s. 161 Cr.P.C.