- (1.) WE have heard Sri A K Sachan, Advocate on the admission of the present appeal filed by the informant of Sessions Trial No. 253 of 2001 against judgment of acquittal dated 25.3.2013, passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Court No. 22, Kanpur Nagar, by which respondent nos. 2 to 5 were acquitted of charges under Sections 147, 332, 353 and 307 IPC as also Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. The informant, appellant of the present case, a constable posted in police station Bithur, Kanpur, stated that he was on patrolling duty and after having given a round of five villages, mentioned in his written report, extracted in paragraph 2 of the impugned judgment, came to the Heritage Farm and sat there to take tea. At that very time, a three -wheeler bearing registration no. UP 78 -N 3218 came there and was parked in front of the shop. 8 -9 persons alighted from the aforesaid vehicle and one out of them gave a danda blow on the back of the informant and 3 -4 others caught hold of the appellant and attempted to snatch his service rifle, which was not parted with by the appellant, who knelt down on the ground. The other accused persons caught hold of the companion constable PW -2 Chiranji Lal and scuffled with him. People of the surrounding area assembled there and the accused persons fled from the spot.
(2.) ON the basis of the written report, the case was investigated into and the respondents were sent up for trial, which ultimately ended in their acquittal.
(3.) THE learned trial Judge has scanned the evidence of three eyewitnesses including the two victims, i.e., PW -1, the informant -appellant of the case and PW -2 Constable Chiranji Lal, the companion of the appellant and the third independent witness, namely, Devi Prasad (PW -3). The learned trial Judge on scanning the evidence found that it was sufficiently emerging from the evidence of the two constables, i.e., the present appellant and PW -2 Chiranji Lal that they were fully acquainted with the names, parentage, locality of habitat of the respondents from before the occurrence, as they admitted that they knew them by their names and parentage also, but in spite of that the names of the respondents were not figuring in the written report. The learned trial Judge further held that in supposing that the respondents were not known to the witnesses by their names and faces, then it was incumbent upon the prosecution to organize a test identification parade after they had been arrested or had surrendered themselves to the custody of the court, but not collecting the evidence of identification made it unsafe to uphold the case of the prosecution that indeed the present set of respondents had participated in the commission of the offence. What has more interested us was that PW -2 was an eyewitness and he also admitted that he identified the respondents at the very time of the commission of the offence on 25.5.1998 at 7.30 A.M. In the month of May and in Kanpur, we could safely assume that the sun would be quite up in the sky at 7.30 P.M. and sun light, if any, would be scorching unbearable, thus, making it quite easy for anyone to pick up the identifying features of the accused. Nonetheless, PW -3 was very categorical that he had seen and identified the respondents. He was an eye -witness and is supposed to have divulged the participation of the accused persons to the two constables, who had been beaten up in the public view and at such a public place, like, a road but, curiously enough, the F.I.R. does not contain any name. Thus, there is a serious doubt not only about the story as was propounded by the informant, but also on the credibility of the witnesses and the narrations they were making before the trial court. At any rate, one of the constables, namely, Chiranji Lal, appears not digesting the whole truth and was probably becoming a bit honest, when he was stating that someone from the crowd, which had gathered there at the road had fired a shot, he had not stated that they were among the four respondents, who had fired the shot, which further takes out the air out of the sail of the prosecution case. In our opinion, as we find suggested by the materials also, the constables were flexing their muscles on account of finding one of the respondents, who was plying the three -wheeler to have parked his vehicle in their presence very much on the road and was probably either castigated or challenged in such a way that it had created annoyance in their mind and taking the advantage of being uniformed personnel of the Police Department, they appear having foisted a false case upon the respondents. In view of aforesaid, the judgment of acquittal could have been the only result in the face of the evidence, which was available to the learned trial Judge. We refuse to grant leave of the Court to appeal and dismiss the appeal.;