JAGDISH PANDIT Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Criminal Revision application has been filed against the order dated 28.1.1998, whereby and whereunder the learned Judicial Magistrate, Bermo at Tenughat rejected the prayer of the petitioners for discharge in connection with Bermo PS Case No. 161 of 1996 (TR No. 593/1998) registered under Section 414 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) THE prosecution case in brief is that Sub -Inspector of Police of Bermo Police Station alongwith other police officers were checking the trucks at Phusro Gomia Road on 12.12.1996 at about 8.15 a.m. At about 10 a.m. a truck bearing registration No. BRY 4801 arrived there in which one and half tonnes of iron scrap was loaded. The informant asked for documents in respect of iron scraps but the driver Jagdish Pandit, the petitioner No. 1 could not produce any paper and he said that the iron scraps belonged to Sabbir of Dhori Basti and he had taken the truck on hire basis from his truck owner Amarjit Prasad Barnwal, the petitioner No. 2. The driver further stated that truck owner and Sabbir would be coming later on. The Informant seized the said iron scraps in presence of witnesses and a seizure list was prepared. Accordingly the FIR was lodged.

(3.) MR . Praveen Shankar Dayal, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners submitted that the Court below committed error in rejecting the prayer of the petitioners without considering the evidence on record and passed the order in cryptic manner on the basis of the submissions of the learned APP that there is sufficient evidence against the petitioners which shall be produced in the Court at the time of trial but actually there is no iota of evidence connecting the petitioners for the alleged offence as well as there is no report of theft of the said iron scraps and, therefore, Section 414, IPC is not applicable in the matter. It is further argued that the witnesses Anil Kumar Singh, Md. Sayeed, Md. Yusuf and Ganesh Murli have been examined under Section 164, Cr PC and they have categorically stated that said iron scraps were purchased from them by Sabbir and, therefore, the petitioners have got no concern with the said iron scraps as well as the petitioner No. 1 is simply a driver of the truck and the petitioner No. 2 is the owner of the truck, who was not present at the spot can be said to produce the papers or can be responsible for the said iron scraps as the truck was taken on hire basis and no where it has come in evidence that the petitioners are in either way involved in conspiring the crime Actually, Sabbir had claimed the scraps as bonqfide purchaser of the same.