P.N.Harkauli - (1.) REMESHWAR, applicant was convicted under Section 379 IPC and sentene-d to six months R.I. by the learned Addl. District Magistrate (Judicial) Mathura. He preferred an appeal which was dismissed by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge. Hence this revision.
(2.) THE prosecution case was that on 16-8-1971 at about 6 p. m. the applicant picked the pocket of the complainant Chandoo and committed theft of a ten rupee note at the Roadways Bus Stand Mathura. THE complainant, however, noticed it immediately and raised an alarm and chased the applicant who was arrested with the assistance of some constables, who were on duty there, and some witnesses of the public. The applicant pleaded not guilty and alleged that he had been falsely implicated by the police because he had filed a complaint against the Station Officer Incharge Police Station Barsana and two constables. In order to prove its case the prosecution produced three witnesses namely, Chandoo (PW 1) complainant, Bashir (PW 3) a witness of the public and Head Constable Kishan Kumar (PW 2) who is said to have been on duty at the Bus Stand and who made the recovery and prepared the recovery memo. The trial court as well as the appellate court believed the evidence of these three witnesses and recorded the conviction of the applicant.
(3.) LEARNED counsel for the applicant contended that the complainant as well as the other witness of the public Bashir were pocket witnesses of the police who had appeared as witnesses for the police in a very large number of cases and the Head Constable also had reason to be against the applicant because of the complaint filed by him against a Sub-inspector and some constables of police station Barsana, and thus there was no reliable testimony to support the prosecution case. Now Bashir admitted in cross-examination that he had appeared as a witness for the police earlier in two or three cases. On behalf of the applicant some documents were filed to show that he had appeared as a witness for the police in several cases other than those admitted by him but the learned Sessions Judge rejected them on the ground that the identity of the person who had given evidence in those cases had not been established and it had not been shown that the complainant was the person who had appeared in those cases. As for the two or three cases in which Chandoo admitted having appeared, the learned Sessions Judge observed that since it was not shown that those two or three cases were of the same police station it could not be said that Chandoo was a regular police witness. I find it difficult to appreciate this reasoning. It is difficult to see why a person who has appeared for the police in cases of the same police station is less unreliable than a person who has appeared for the police in cases relating to different police station or vice versa. The distinction drawn by the learned Sessions Judge is altogether artificial and unjustified. The position so far as Bashir is concerned is even worse. The defence filed a document to show that this witness had himself admitted that he had appeared as a witness for the police in as many as 10-12 cases. It is obvious that a person who has appeared as a witness for the police in such a large number of cases cannot be considered as anything but a pocket witness of the police. The learned Sessions Judge ignored this admission of the witness by saying that this admission was not put to the witness and his explanation was never obtained. This reasoning is really very difficult to understand. When the witness admitted that he had appeared as a witness in that case and it was shown that in that case he had admitted that he had appeared as a witness for the police in 10 or 12 cases, one fails to see what explanation could have come for this admission. In this case again, I cannot help saying that the learned Sessions Judge rejected the criticism advanced against this witness by the defence on very insufficient grounds.;