YOGENDRA SINGH Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners Yogendra Singh and Radhey Shyam Singh and Sudama Singh, were appellants in Cr. Appeal Nos. 45 of 2005 and 33 of 2005 respectively before the Sessions Judge, Gumla and the said appeals were filed against the judgment and conviction passed against them by the learned Judicial Magistrate, 1st Glass, Gumla under sections 25 (1-B) (a) and 26 of the Arms Act. The Trial Court on finding the petitioners guilty, sentenced each one of them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for two years under section 25 (1-B) (a) and rigorous imprisonment for one year under sections 26 of the Arms Act. The allegation against them is that at 6 p.m. on 28.2.2002 when P.W. 4, the Investigating Officer, was at Turbul market found the petitioner coming in a motorcycle and on seeing the police party tried to escape from the police but were overpowered and caught. When the police officer, P.W. 4, searched the person of these two petitioners, he found . 12 bore cartridge in the pocket of Sudama Singh and a pistol in the waist of Yogendra Singh. A seizure list of the recovered materials attested by P.Ws. 1 and 2 in presence of P.Ws. 3 and 5, the members of the armed forces, was prepared. After the investigation, final report was filed.

(2.) The learned Counsel appearing for the petitioners submits that when the material objects which were sent to the Court, they were sent as if they were recovered in P.S. Case No. 4 of 2002 of Kamdara police station and, therefore, these materials objects could not have been seized in connection with P.S. Case No. 5 of 2002 of the said police station.

(3.) I find no substance in the saidargument. The case of the prosecution, as stated earlier, is that after arresting one Karampal Sahu in connection with Kamdara P.S. Case No. 4 of 2002, the police officer was waiting at Turbul and arrested two persons when they were coming in a motorcycle and seized the material objects and thereafter a separate crime was registered in P.S. Case No. 5 considered by the Courts below and they gave findings on the above facts. The Courts below chose to accept the evidence of the police officer, even though the witnesses, who attested the seizure list, have turned hostile. It is not in dispute that the Court need not reject the evidence of a police officer, merely because he happens to be a person, in uniform. Evidence of a police officer is to be considered as the evidence of any other witness. The Courts below having accepted the evidence of the police officer, I find no reason to interfere with the said finding, to hold otherwise. The discrepancy, as regards the recovery, on which the learned Counsel wanted to place reliance are too trivial in nature for a Revisional Court to interfere with the findings given on facts by the Courts below. I, therefore, hold that the Courts below rightly convicted the petitioner.