Delhi District Court
State vs . Sidharth And Ors on 16 July, 2012
IN THE COURT OF SH. SAMAR VISHAL, METROPOLITAN MAGISTRATE05, SOUTH
EAST DISTRICT, NEW DELHI
STATE VS. Sidharth and ors
FIR NO: 892/98
P. S. Sriniwas Puri
U/s 186/353/34 IPC
Unique ID no. 02403R0016691999
JUDGMENT
Sl. No. of the case : 405/2 (19.11.1999) Date of its institution : 17.11.1998 Name of the complainant : Ct. Jagbir Singh Date of Commission of offence : 18.9.1998
Name of the accused : 1. Sh. Sidharth, S/o Sh. Gopal Dass
2. Sh. Babadin, S/o Sh. Phool Chand
3. Sh. Myoti Singh, S/o Sh. Mahar Singh
4. Sh. Mahender Singh Negi (Since deceased) Offence complained of : Section 186/353/323/34 IPC Plea of accused : Not guilty Case reserved for orders : 29.6.2012 Date of judgment : 16.7.2012 Final Order : CONVICTED State Vs. Sidharth 1/10 FIR no. 892/98 BRIEF STATEMENT OF FACTS FOR THE DECISION:
1. This is the trial of the aforesaid accused persons upon the police report filed by P.S. Sriniwas Puri u/s 186/353/308/34 IPC.
2. As per the prosecution's case, on 18.9.1998 at about 9.35/40 pm at Ashram Chowk, Faridabad bus stand, New Delhi all the accused persons in furtherance of their common intention obstructed Ct. Jagbir Singh from discharging his duty as public servant, voluntarily caused hurt on his person to deter him from discharging his duty as public servant and also caused him simple injuries and thereby committed an offence u/s 186/353/323/34 IPC.
3. In order to prove its case, prosecution has examined eight witnesses.
4. PW 1 is Ct. Sanjay who deposed that on 18.9.98 he was posted at PP NFC and he alongwith Ct. Jagbir were on patrolling duty at Ashram Chowk. At about 9.35 to 9.40 pm when they reached at the bus stop near a juice shop, they found that some persons under the influence of liquor were indulged in affray and abusing each other. When they asked reason for such behaviour, they started beating Ct. Jagbir with fists and kick blows. In the meantime, one person came there with 34 persons having danda and hockey in their hands and gave a hockey blow on the head of Ct. Jagbir due to which they received injuries. He identified the accused persons in the State Vs. Sidharth 2/10 FIR no. 892/98 court.
5. Next witness is Sh. Vivek Gogia who proved his complaint u/s 195 Cr.PC as Ex.PW3/A.
6. PW 4 is Ct. Jagbir who was the injured and was with Ct. Sanjay on the date of incident and deposed on the same lines as deposed by PW 1 Ct. Sanjay and also proved his statement as Ex.PW4/A. This witness has also identified the accused persons in the court.
7. PW 5 is Ct. Bhuvnesh Singh Tomar who proved his involvement in the investigation and deposed that an informer met with SI Raj Kumar and stated that the accused persons of this case could be apprehended from Park near Masjid. They all reached at the spot. The two persons after seeing them started running out of which one was overpowered by SI Raj Kumar while another by him. Accused persons were arrested and their personal search was carried out vide memo Ex.PW5/A and Ex.PW5/B.
8. PW 6 is HC Sher Singh who was the duty officer and proved the FIR as Ex.PW6/A.
9. PW 7 is HC Chander Pal in whose presence SI Raj Kumar recorded the statement of Mahender Singh Negi. He deposed that on 18.9.98 the scuffle had taken State Vs. Sidharth 3/10 FIR no. 892/98 place between Ct. Jagbir, Sanjay, Mahender Negi etc. He identified the accused persons namely Mahneder Singh Negi and Sidharth in the Court.
10. PW 8 is SI Raj Kumar who was the investigating officer of this case and proved his investigation alongwith certain documents like statement of Ct. Jagbir as Ex.PW4/A, rukka as Ex.PW8/A, site plan as Ex.PW8/B, arrest memo of accused Mahender Singh as Ex.PW8/C, his disclosure statement as Ex.PW8/D, arrest memos of accused Babadin and Sidhartha as Ex.PW8/E and Ex.PW8/F and their personal search as Ex.PW5/A and Ex.PW5/B, recovery memo of hockey as Ex.PW7/B.
11. This is the overall prosecution's evidence in this case.
12. After the evidence was closed, accused persons were examined u/s 313 Cr.PC wherein all incriminating evidences were put to them which they denied and further submitted that they do not want to lead defence evidence.
13. I have heard the Ld. APP for State and counsel for accused persons and perused the records of the case.
14. It is argued by the Ld. APP for State that the case of the prosecution has been duly proved by the testimony of the witnesses and there is no impediment in convicting the accused persons.
15. On the other hand, it has been argued by counsel for accused persons that State Vs. Sidharth 4/10 FIR no. 892/98 the accused persons are falsely implicated in this case, there is no evidence that the complainant was on duty on the date of incident and that neither any public person made a witness nor any weapon of offence recovered.
16. Having dealt with the submissions advanced by both the sides, I proceed to adjudicate upon the most important question involved in the present case: whether the accused is guilty of the offence with which he is charged or not.
17. It is a fundamental principal in a criminal trial, that, it is for the prosecution to establish its case beyond all reasonable doubts. It is for the prosecution to travel the entire distance from may have to must have. If the prosecution appears to be improbable or lacks credibility the benefit of doubt necessarily has to go to the accused. Besides the rules regarding appreciation of evidence, the Court has to keep in mind certain significant principles of law under the Indian Criminal Jurisprudence, i.e. right to fair trial and presumption of innocence, which are the twin essentials of administration of criminal justice. A person is presumed to be innocent till proven guilty and has a right of fair trial.
18. As per the prosecution's case, the accused persons assaulted and injured the complainant Ct. Jagbir. He was on duty when he objected to the ruckus created by the accused persons in the public place. It appears that on this the accused persons were State Vs. Sidharth 5/10 FIR no. 892/98 provoked and they ultimately assaulted the complainant. The complainant and Ct. Sanjay are the eye witnesses of the incident and the whole prosecution case is based on the testimony of these injured persons. In the present case, the injured is complainant. Regarding his injuries, apart from oral evidences, there is documentary evidences i.e MLCs of injured which are admitted by the accused persons and which shows that injured Jagbir suffered simple injuries . The injured is the best witness of the incident in which injuries were caused to him and therefore his testimony is entitled to great weight. The presence of such witness at the time and place of occurrence cannot be doubted. It is not likely that he would spare the real assailants and implicate an innocent person. Being the victim of crime, he would be most keen to ensure that the real culprit does not go scot free. In Mer Dhana Side Vs. State of Gujarat AIR 1985 SC 386 it was held by Hon'ble Supreme Court of India that "It would require very convincing submissions to discard the evidence of the injured witnesses whose injuries would at least permit a reasonable inference that they were present at the time of occurrence. Undoubtedly, this is subject to the requirement that there must be evidence to show that these witnesses received injuries in the same occurrence".
19. As far as the evidentiary value of the injured witness/witness who is the victim of the offence is concerned, the Hon'ble Gujarat High Court has this to say in the case of State of Gujrat vs Bharwad Jakshibhai Nagribhai and Others 1990 CrLJ State Vs. Sidharth 6/10 FIR no. 892/98 2531 "For appreciating the evidence of the injured witnesses the Court should bear in mind that :
(1) Their presence at the time and place of the occurrence cannot be doubted.
(2) They do not have any reason to omit the real culprits and implicate falsely the accused persons.
(3) The evidence of the injured witnesses is of great value to the prosecution and it cannot be doubted merely on some supposed natural conduct of a person during the incident or after the incident because it is difficult to imagine how a witness would act or react to a particular incident. His action depends upon number of imponderable aspects.
(4) If there is any exaggeration in their evidence, then the exaggeration is to be discarded and not their entire evidence. (5) While appreciating their evidence the Court must not attach undue importance to minor discrepancies, but must consider broad spectrum of the prosecution version. The discrepancies may be due to normal errors of perception or observation or due to lapse of memory or due to faulty or stereotype investigation. (6) It should be remembered that there is a tendency amongst the truthful witnesses also to back up a good case by false or exaggerated version. In this type of situation the best course for the Court would be to discard exaggerated version or falsehood but not to discard entire version. Further, when a doubt arises in State Vs. Sidharth 7/10 FIR no. 892/98 respect of certain facts stated by such witness, the proper course is to ignore that fact only unless it goes into the root of the matter so as to demolish the entire prosecution story.
20. Now in the light of the above judgment, it is clear that the testimony of the injured witnesses of the offence stands on a very higher footing unless and until impeached by some clinching evidence. I have perused the evidences of the witnesses and I find that the same are quite consistent, truthful and creditworthy. The witnesses have withstood the cross examination and there is nothing in it which can impeach their credit or discard their testimony or to doubt their veracity. Both the witnesses ie. Ct Jagbir and Ct. Sanjay have deposed about the date of incident correctly and the manner in which the incident occurred. Their is nothing to doubt their presence at the spot.
21. The oral testimonies of complainant and other injured witnesses are further corroborated by medical evidences i.e his MLC Ex. A1 which proves the nature of injuries received by the injured. Considering the ocular as well as documentary evidences, charge against the accused persons have been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
22. Now I consider the defences raised by the counsel for accused persons one by one.
23. As far as the first defence raised by counsel for accused persons that no independent public witness has been examined by the prosecution despite that the incident occurred in a residential area, I am of the view that this is not such a impelling ground to throw the case of the prosecution. It is a matter of common experience that the public persons are not interested in deposing in Courts in cases in which they do State Vs. Sidharth 8/10 FIR no. 892/98 not have any personal interest. Not only this, there are cases where even the victim of the offence and the persons who are related to that case also shy away from coming to the Courts. As far as the defence that no public person was made a witness is concerned, the answer lies in the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Appabhai v. State of Gujarat (1988 SC Cr R 559 9 : AIR 1988 SC 696) where the Hon'ble Supreme Court has been pleased to observe: "It is no doubt true that the prosecution has not been able to produce any independent witness to the incident that took place at the busstand. There must have been several of such witnesses. But the prosecution case cannot be thrown out or doubted on that ground alone. Experience reminds us that civilized people are generally insensible when a crime is committed even in their presence. They withdraw both from the victim and the vigilant. They keep themselves away from the court unless it is inevitable. They think that crime like civil dispute is between two individuals or parties and they should not involve themselves. This kind of apathy of the general public is indeed unfortunate but it is there, everywhere whether in village life, towns or cities. One cannot ignore this handicap with which the investigation agency has to discharge its duties. The court, therefore, instead of doubting the prosecution case for want of independent witnesses must consider the broad spectrum or the prosecution version and search for the nugget of truth with due regard to probability if any, suggested by the accused."
24. The other line of argument on behalf of the accused persons was that there is no evidence to show that the Ct Jagbir was on duty on the date of this incident. It is correct that there is no documentary evidence to prove that Ct. Jagbir was on duty on the date of accident but there is oral evidence in that respect. The witness Vivek Gogia who was Addl. DCP has deposed in his cross examination that Ct. Jagbir was on duty on the date of incident. He is a senior officer of police and cannot be expected to have State Vs. Sidharth 9/10 FIR no. 892/98 made a false statement. Even in his complainant Ex PW3/A he has mentioned that on 18091998 Ct. Jagbir Singh was on patrolling duty and were assaulted on duty . Not only this,Ct Sanjay and Ct. Jagbir has also categorically deposed that they were on duty at the time of incident. Ct. Sanjay was in uniform at the time of incident. This made them unable to pursue their duty smoothly. Therefore this contention that the injured constable was not on duty is not tenable. After going through the overall evidences ocular as well as documentary, the time has come to consider what offence has been committed by the accused persons. The accused persons are charged with offence u/s /186353/323/34 IPC.
25. Section 319 IPC, defines the term hurt. Under section 319 IPC whoever causes bodily pan, disease or infirmity to any person is said to cause hurt.
26. In the present case the injured constable has suffered simple injuries as defined in section 319 IPC. Ct Jagbir was unlawfully obstructed in his performance of duty and was also assaulted in that act. Therefore there is no doubt that the accused persons committed offences under 186/323/353/34 IPC.
27. Therefore, on the basis of overall discussions, accused persons are convicted for offence u/s 186/323/353/34 IPC.
Announced in the open court (Samar Vishal)
on 16.7.2012 Metropolitan Magistrate05,
South East, New Delhi
State Vs. Sidharth 10/10 FIR no. 892/98