Delhi District Court
State vs . Chanden Kumar Pandey on 5 September, 2016
IN THE COURT OF Ms. SHIVALI SHARMA
ADDITIONAL CHIEF METROPOLITAN MAGISTRATE
EAST: KARKARDOOMA COURT: DELHI
FIR No. : 50/11
PS :NEW AHSOK NAGAR
u/S : 285/336 IPC
STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY
JUDGMENT
A Unique ID No. of the case 02400R0689172005 B Name of the complainant HC Charan Dass C Name of the accused & (1) Chandan Kumar Pandey S/o Late Sh. his parentage and N. P. Pandey R/o 31/142, Trilokpuri, Delhi.
address (2)Rohtash Singh S/o Sh. Inder Singh, R/o
Village Vair, District Bulandsher,
Sikandrabad, UP.
(3) Vijay Pratap S/o Sh. Hari Pratap, R/o
H. No. 101, Street No. 1, Village Kichripur, Delhi-91.
(4)Om Prakash S/o Sh. Kishan Lal, R/o A731, G D Colony, Mayur Vihar-3, Delhi.
(5) Satbir S/o Sh. Nahar Singh R/o Village Bajgaddi PS Iglash District Aligarh since (Since PO vide order dated 11.12.2012).
(6) Ashok Kumar S/o Ram Swaroop R/o Master Park, Gali No. 10, Khoda Colony, Ghaziabad, UP.
(7) Raj Kumar S/o Virender Singh Chouhan R/o Village Bichhiya, PS Mainpuri District Mainpuri since (Since PO vide order dated 11.12.2012).
D Offence Complained of U/s 285/336 IPC E Date of commission of 16.12.2004 offence. F Date of Institution 16.12.2005 G Offence Charged 285/336 IPC H Plea of the accused Pleaded not guilty I Order Reserved on 31.08.2016 J Date of Pronouncement 05.09.2016 K Final Order Acquitted of offence 285/336 IPC. STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY FIR NO. 464/04 PAGE No.7/7
BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE REASONS FOR THE DECISION PROSECUTION'S CASE 1 The story of the prosecution is that on 16.12.2004 at about 01.00 PM, in an open plot D-Block, Ghadoli, Dairy Farm, Delhi falling within the jurisdiction of Police Station New Ashok Nagar, all accused persons by filing empty LPG cylinders from the filled LPG cylinders knowingly or negligently omitted to take such order with LPG gas cylinders (combustible matter) in their possession as is sufficient to guard against any probable danger to human life from such LPG cylinder and thereby committed offences punishable u/s 285/336 IPC. FIR 2 On the basis of the said allegations and on the complaint of the complainant HC Charan Das, FIR bearing number 464/04 under section 285/336 IPC was lodged at New Ashok Nagar Vihar on 16.12.2004.
NOTICE 3 After investigation, charge-sheet under section 173 Cr. P.C was filed on 16.12.2005 against 7 accused persons.
4 During trial accused Satbir and Rajkumar absconded and were declared proclaimed offenders vide order dated 11.12.2012.
5 On the basis of the charge-sheet and after compliance of Sec.207 Cr.P.C., a notice for the offence punishable under section 285/336 IPC was framed against the remaining 5 accused persons and read out to them, to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial on 22.07.2013.
STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY FIR NO. 464/04 PAGE No.7/7 PROSECUTION EVIDENCE 6 To bring home the guilt against the accused persons prosecution has examined 08 witnesses in all. Inadvertently 2 wintesses namely Rajesh Kumar and Ct. Jagat Pal have been examined as PW4.
7 PW1 Nargis Nakvi, PW2 M. Khaliq, PW3 Sh. Madhusudan Rai and PW4 Rajesh Kumar are the public witnesses who have not supported the case of prosecution and were declared hostile. Despite their cross examination by Ld. APP for the State, they did not support the prosection case and even denied having made any statement before the IO. They also failed to identify the accused persons.
8 PW5 is a formal witness being the DO/SI Nageshwari who proved the present FIR as Ex. PW5/A and endorsement on the rukka as Ex. PW5/B. 9 PW4 Jagat Pal, PW6 Satya Prakash, PW7 ASI CD Singh Chouhan are the police witnesses to the incident who had apprehended the accused as per the case of the prosecution. Their depositions are in consonance with each other except for certain differences regarding their respective roles.
10 They deposed that on 16.12.2004, PW6, PW7 and Ct. Om Kumar were on patrolling duty in the area and PW4 in his beat. As they reached at B Block Gharoli Diary Farm, they saw 6-7 persons on an empty plot who were taking out LPG Gas from filled cylinders and transferring them to empty cylinders. When PW4 had reached the spot HC Charan Das, Ct. Satya Prakash and Ct. Om Kumar were already present there. There were 27 cylinders on the spot, out of STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY FIR NO. 464/04 PAGE No.7/7 which 10 cylinders were of Indane and 17 of Bharat Gas. Out of them 15 cylinders were fully filled up, 5 were empty and 7 were partly filled up. There were two rubber pipes, one regulator, one weighing machine, one small screw driver and one nokia mobile phone. There were also two instruments used for transferring gas from one cylinder into another. IO/HC Charan Das took their possession vide seizure memo Ex. PW6/C. There were about 7 cycles which were also taken in police possession vide seizure memo Ex. PW6/E. The mobile phone was taken into police pssession vide seizure memo Ex. PW6/F. The IO prepared the tehrir and sent Ct. Satya Prakash to PS for registration of FIR. They remained at the spot alongwith IO and Ct. Satya Prakash returned after registration of FIR. All the articles which were taken into police possession were sealed with the seal of CD and seal after use was handed over to Ct. Om Kumar. The accused persons were arrested vide arrest memo Ex. PW6/A1 to Ex. PW6/A7.
11 Some of the case property was produced before the court. Ld. Defence counsel did not object to the non production of remaining case property.
12 Accused were identified by PW6 and PW7 but PW 4 Ct. Jagat Pal could not identify them by name.
STATEMENT OF ACCUSED 13 Statements of accused persons namely Ashok Kumar, Om Prakash, Vijay Pratap, Chandan Kumar Pandey and Rohtas Singh were recorded u/s. 313 Cr.P.C. On 31.08.2016 wherein they denied all the allegations made against them and stated that they are innocent. They also stated that the police officials of PS New Ashok Nagar had STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY FIR NO. 464/04 PAGE No.7/7 demanded cylinders from them free of cost. On their refusal, IO had falsely implicated them in the present case.
DEFENCE EVIDENCE 14 Accused did not lead any defence evidence.
15 Final arguments have been heard and record has been carefully perused.
JUDICIAL RESOLUTION 16 It is a settled proposition of criminal law that prosecution is supposed to prove its case on the judicial file by leading cogent, convincing, reliable and trustworthy evidence beyond reasonable doubts. The case of the prosecution has to fall or stand on its own legs and it cannot derive any benefit from the weakness if any, in the defence of the accused. It is not for the accused to disprove the case of the prosecution and onus to prove the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubts never shifts and it always remains on the prosecution. Further, benefit of doubt in the prosecution story always goes to the accused and it entitles the accused to acquittal.
17 In the present case, accused persons have been charged with the offences U/s 285/336/34 IPC. There sections provides for following offences.
Section 336:- Whoever does any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or the personal safety of others shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine which may extend to two hundred STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY FIR NO. 464/04 PAGE No.7/7 and fifty repees or with both.
Section 285:- Whoever does, with fire or any combustible matter, any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life, or to be likely to cause hurt or injury to any other person.
Or knowingly or negligently omits to take such order with any fire or any combustible matter in his possession as is sufficient to guard against any probable danger to human life from such fire or combustible matter, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees, or with both.
18 None of the public witness has supported the case of the prosecution. Even otherwise the public witnesses were not the eye witness to the incident. The only eye witnesses to the incident as per the case of the prosecution are four police official i.e. PW4, PW6, PW7 and Ct. Om Kumar. Three of these witnesses have been examined by the prosecution. A careful perusal of testimony of these three witnesses show that there are serveral contradictions in their testimony. While PW4 testified in his cross examination that there were no built up properties adjacent to the spot, as per PW6 and PW7 there were residential houses adjoining the plot in question. As per PW4 no public person was available near the spot. As per PW6 no nereby resident was called by IO/PW7 to join the investigation. As per PW7 he had asked the nearby residents to join the investigation but none agreed and they left without disclosing their names and addresses. As per PW4 entire case property was taken to the PS in a small private tempo. However as per PW7 the entire case property was taken by four police officials on the 7 recovered bicycles.
STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY FIR NO. 464/04 PAGE No.7/7 19 All these countradictions in depostion of PW4, 6 and 7 make it difficult to give a finding of guilt against the accused persons in absence of corroboration from any independent public witness.
20 Moreover the accused persons have clearly put forth the reasons for their false implication in this case in the form of suggestions to the prosecution witnesses and also in their statements u/s 313 Cr.P.C.
21 Considering the overall evidence on record, I have no hesitation in holding that prosecution has failed to prove the offences as charged against the accused persons beyond any reasonable doubt.
22 Accordingly, accused persons namely Chandan Kumar Pandey, Rohtash Singh, Vijay Pratap, Om Prakash and Ashok Kumar are acquitted of the offences u/s 285/336 IPC for which they have been charged in the present case giving them the benefit of doubt.
ANNOUNCED IN THE OPEN COURT ON 05.09.2016 (SHIVALI SHARMA) ACMM (EAST)/KKD/05.09.2016 Certified that this judgement contains 7 pages and each page bears my signatures.
(SHIVALI SHARMA) ACMM (EAST)/KKD/05.09.2016 STATE Vs. CHANDEN KUMAR PANDEY FIR NO. 464/04 PAGE No.7/7