Delhi District Court
Cr. Case/9816/2017 on 24 September, 2020
IN THE COURT OF METROPOLITAN MAGISTRATE-05 (SOUTH-WEST),
DWARKA COURTS, NEW DELHI
PRESIDED BY : SH. DEEPAK VATS
STATE V Naresh and Others
FIR No. 165/17
Police Station: Vikas Puri
Under Section: 384/411/34 IPC
Date of institution : 14.12.2017
Date of reserving : 22.09.2020
Date of pronouncement : 24.09.2020
JUDGMENT
a) CIS Number 9816/17
b) Date of commission of offence 24.06.2017
c) Name of the complainant Sh. Vikrant Chouhan
s/o Sh. Mahesh Chouhan r/o
C-1/5 2nd Floor Janak Puri
Delhi, New Delhi
d) Name, parentage and address 1. Naresh Kumar @ Bittu s/o
of the accused Sh. Harish Chander r/o G-54,
Nand Ram Park, Uttam Na-
gar, Delhi.
2. Narender Kumar Drall, s/o
Sh Azad Singh, r/o Village Ki-
ran Kudna, Delhi.
3. Karamveer s/o Sh. Rajpal
Yadav, r/o Village Bihari Pur
PO DG Pura, Dist. Rewari,
STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 1
Haryana.
4. Rohit Kapoor @ Guddu,
s/o Sh. Anil Kapoor, r/o RZ 9
Indra Park Ext. Near Radha
Swami Dairy Uttam Nagar,
Delhi.
e) Offence complained of Section 384/411/34 IPC
f) Plea of the accused Pleaded not guilty
g) Final order Acquitted
h) Date of final order 24.09.2020.
BRIEF REASONS FOR THE JUDGMENT
1. Briefly stated, the case of the prosecution is that on 11.04.2017 at about 12:15 am all the accused persons i.e. Naresh Kumar @ Bittu, Narender Ku- mar Drall, Karamvir and Rohit Kapoor @ Guddu went to the office of the com- plainant situated at B 55 III Floor Vikas Puri New Krishna Park, Vikas Puri, within the jurisdiction of PS Vikas Puri, took the mobile phones of all the employees of the complainant, hurled abuses at the complainant, started beating him and demanded Rs. 5 Lakhs from him. Accused Narender and Karamvir were police constables on the date of incident. They threatened the complainant with police action and finally took Rs. 1 Lakh from him. It is alleged that the accused persons in furtherance of their common intention had put the complainant Vikrant Chauhan in fear of injury to deliver the money and received the said amount from the complainant. It is thus al- leged that all the aforesaid accused persons committed offence of extortion u/s 384/34 IPC.
2. Further, that, on 11.04.2017 accused Narender Kumar Drall was found in possession of Rs. 76,000/- ( Rs. 152 notes of Rs. 500/-) and accused Naresh STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 2 was found in possession of Rs. 9000/-(18 notes of Rs. 500) which were extorted from complainant on 11.04.2017 as aforesaid, which they dishonestly received or retained knowing or having reason to believe to be the stolen property. It is thus al- leged that accused persons had committed offence punishable u/s 411 IPC.
3. Charges were framed against all the accused persons under Section 384/411/34 IPC vide order dated 22.01.2018 to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.
4. In support of its case, the prosecution has examined Nine witnesses:-
5. PW 1 Sh. Vikrant Chauhan was the complainant and PW 2 Abhinav Singh was the partner of the complainant. PW 1 deposed that he was doing busi- ness of website designing in the year 2017 along with Abhinav Singh situated at B- 55 3rd floor New Krishna Park Vikas Puri. He further deposed that he did not re- member the date of the incident, however it was April 2017. He had called accused Naresh in his office to return his loan amount which was given by him to accused Naresh. At about 11 to 11:30 pm accused Naresh came in his office in drunken con- dition and brought less money than the actual amount due and complainant de- manded his full payment. Thereafter a heated argument started between them. The complainant came down from his office. At that time two police persons on a motorcycle were passing from his office road, he requested them to intervene the matter, they replied that they cannot help him as they were from some other police station and asked him to approach his concerned police station. Thereafter, he went to the concerned police station at Vikas Puri, he narrated all the facts to the police and gave his complaint. Thereafter he visited many times to police station for two days to inquire about his complaint. He further deposed that no demand of money was made by accused persons. Accused persons were identified correctly by the complainant. The complainant thus did not support the case of prosecution STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 3 and was declared hostile on request of Ld. APP. In his cross-examination by Ld. APP he proved his complaint Ex. PW 1/A. He deposed that he made a complaint only for misbehaving done by the accused Naresh regarding not returning his money.
6. PW 2 Sh Abhinav Singh deposed on similar lines as the complainant and did not support the case of prosecution. He was also declared hostile, however, in his cross examination also he stated that the incident did not happen in his pres- ence.
7. PW 3 Sh. Rakshit Sharma, was the employee of the complainant. He also stated that he did not know anything about the incident and he was also de- clared hostile.
8. PW 4 SI Vikas Sahu was the IO, he deposed that on 12.04.2017, he was posted at PS Vikas Puri as SI. On that day investigation of the case was marked to him and accused persons were in the lock up after arrest on 11.04.2017. He produced three accused persons namely Karamvir, Narender and Naresh be- fore the concerned court. He gave notice u/s 91 Cr. PC for taking CCTV Footage to owner of the office of the complainant and obtained DVD of the same along with 65 B of Indian Evidence Act certificate. He recorded statement of owner / care taker of the building. Fourth accused namely Rohit Kapoor was granted anticipatory bail from the court, who joined his investigation and he formally arrested him. The IO obtained Duty Register roaster of accused Karamvir and Narender from PS Janakpuri after giving notice u/s 91 Cr. PC. to SHO. Two notices to the owner of the building were exhibited as Ex. PW 4/A and Ex. PW 4/A1. Notices to SHO Janakpuri was exhibited as Ex. PW 4/B. He also proved the certificate u/s 65 B which was exhibited as Ex. PW 4/C. Seizure memo of CD of CCTV Footage was exhibited as Ex. PW 4/D. Copy of the duty roaster was marked as Mark 4X. He ob-
STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 4 tained call detail report of the mobile phone of accused from the concerned com- pany of mobile phone. Application to said CDR was exhibited as Ex. PW 4/E. CDR report and connection form of relevant SIM numbers of accused Naresh Kumar, Narender Kumar Drall, Karamvir and Rohit Kapoor, application form and CDR re- port of all the accused persons were exhibited as Ex. PW 4/F ( Colly). Certificate u/s 65 B issued by the concerned operator of SIM number of all accused persons were exhibited as Ex. PW 4/G ( Colly.). CCTV Footage was exhibited as Ex. P-1. After completion of investigation, he filed the charge sheet against the accused persons.
9. PW 5 ASI Umed Singh was the duty officer and brought roznamcha register of DD no. 5 A which was exhibited as Ex. PW 5/A .
10. PW-6 ASI Rajender Singh, has proved the arrest memo of accused Naresh vide memo Ex. PW 6/A . He seized the money of Rs. 9,000/- from the pos- session of accused Naresh vide seizure memo Ex. PW 6/B bears. He arrested the accused Naresh vide memo Ex. PW 6/D. Seizure memo of the car bearing no. DL- 4CAH 4336 was exhibited as Ex. PW 6/C. Arrest memo of accused Karamvir and Narender were exhibited as Ex. PW 6/E and Ex. PW 6/F. An amount of Rs. 76,000/- were recovered from the accused Narender vide seizure memo Ex PW6/G. Disclosure of all the three accused persons were recorded and the same were exhibited as Ex. PW 6/H, Ex. PW6/I and Ex. PW 6/J. He also prepared the site plan at the instance of complainant. Site plan was exhibited as Ex. PW 6/K. He exhibited the photographs of car as Ex. P-1 to P-5
11. PW 7 HC Dhananjay accompanied the IO during investigation of the case. He proved the personal search of accused vide Ex. PW 7/A. STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 5
12. PW8 HC Mahipal was the witness to the DD entry no. 69 B dated 10.04.2017 which was exhibited as Ex. PW 8/A and duty roaster as Ex. PW 8/B.
13. PW 9 HC Vivek accompanied the IO. He deposed regarding the investigation conducted by the IO and proved the personal search of accused persons conducted by the IO vide personal search memo now Ex. PW 9/A and Ex. PW 9/B respectively.
14. Accused persons admitted the evidence of HC Florance with FIR, MHCM, Nodal officer Bharti Airtel Ltd with CDR of mobile no. 9810147934 and 9971716684, Nodal Officer Vodafone mobile service ltd with CDR of 8802517780, Nodal Officer IDEI Cellula Ltd with CDR of mobile no. 7065147705, Nodal officer Reliance Jio with CDR of no. 8700930342 as Ex P/A/1 to Ex P/A/6 respectively U/S 294 CrPC. They also admitted the statement of Gopal, statement of Anil Kapoor, CD and certificate u/s 65 B given by witness Gopal U/s 294 Cr. PC as Ex. A-7 to Ex. A9 respectively.
15. Thereafter PE was closed. Statement of accused persons u/s 313 Cr. PC was recorded in which they denied the allegations made against them and claimed that they have been falsely implicated. Thereafter matter was fixed for final arguments. Final arguments were heard.
16. Heard Ld. APP for the state and Sh. J. D. Sharma and Sh. Rajesh Ahlawat, Ld. Counsels for accused persons. Record perused.
17. The main allegations against the accused persons are that of extortion i.e. the accused persons put the complainant in fear of injury to deliver Rs. 1 Lakh and received the said amount. As discussed above, the star witness of the prosecu- tion i.e. the complainant turned hostile and he was declared so by the court on re-
STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 6 quest of Ld. APP. Complainant further deposed that no demand of money was made by any of the accused persons. In his cross-examination also he did not support the case of the prosecution. He denied all the suggestion made by the Ld. APP. He also stated that he made a complaint only regarding misbehavior by the accused Naresh for not returning his money. Similarly, PW2 and PW 3 also turned hostile. They also did not support the case of prosecution. PW 3 has stated that he did not know anything about the incident. PW 2 only stated that accused Naresh was heavily drunk on the date of incident and he started abusing Vikrant Chauhan regarding some money transaction. He failed to identify the accused persons other than accused Naresh. He also deposed nothing regarding extortion. Apart from these three witnesses, the prosecution has not examined any other eye witness. The only credible evidence regarding the alleged incident is Ex. P1 i.e. the DVD of CCTV Footage.
18. I have seen the DVD of CCTV Footage. In the said DVD Ex. P1, ac- cused persons are seen going upstairs to the office of the complainant. At one place one of the accused persons is seen grabbing collar of another person from complainant's side. The DVD does show that something suspicious was transpiring on the date of incident, however, the same in itself is not sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused persons because the alleged delivery of money is not seen in it. In the event of prosecution witnesses turning hostile, the benefit of doubt must accrue to the accused persons. Accordingly the court comes to a conclusion that the pros- ecution has failed to prove that accused persons have committed the offence of ex- tortion u/s 384/34 IPC. When there is no proof of commission of offence u/s 384/34 IPC, it is needless to say that charge u/s 411 IPC also cannot sustain. In view of the testimonies of PW1, PW 2 and PW 3, the court holds that prosecution has failed prove the charges leveled against the accused persons, thus accused persons are acquitted for the offences u/s 384/411/34 IPC. Documents, if any be returned to the rightful person. Endorsement, if any be cancelled. Bail bonds stand STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 7 canceled. Superdignama if any, be cancelled. Bail bonds u/s 437A Cr. PC already on record.
19. File be consigned to record room.
Announced in open Court on 24.09.2020.
(DEEPAK VATS) Metropolitan Magistrate-05 (South-West) 24.09.2020 STATE V Naresh and Others FIR No. 165/17 PS: VP U/s : 384/411/34 IPC 8