Madhya Pradesh High Court
The State Of Madhya Pradesh vs Jang Bahadur Singh Judgement Given By: ... on 30 September, 2013
Misc. Criminal Case No.7952/2013
30.9.2013 Per B.D.Rathi,J
Shri S.K.Kashyap, Government Advocate for the
applicant-State.
Heard on admission.
This is an application for grant of leave to appeal
under Section 378(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure
("Code" for short) against the judgment dated 2/5/13
passed by Special Judge (under the Scheduled Castes and
the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
(for short "the Act")), Sehore in Special Case No. 15/2013,
whereby respondent Jang Bahadur Singh has been
acquitted of the offences punishable under Sections 450, 376(1) and 506 Part II of the Indian Penal Code (for short "the IPC") and Section 3(2)(v) of the Act.
Prosecution case, in brief, is that on 30/10/12 at about 8 p.m., while the prosecutrix, a member of scheduled caste, was all alone in her house, respondent trespassed thereinto and after pressing her mouth subjected her to rape and threatened her of her life in case she reported the incident. Later, when her husband arrived, she informed him and thereafter report of the incident leading to registration of Crime No.174/2012 was lodged at Police Station Ahmadpur and after investigation, charge-sheet was filed.
Learned Government Advocate submitted that the impugned judgment was passed without proper appreciation of evidence on record and the same deserved to be interfered with.
Having regard to the arguments advanced by the learned Government Advocate, impugned judgment and record of the trial Court were perused.
After taking into consideration the evidence of Dr. Sandhya (PW1), Ravendra Singh (PW2), Prosecutrix (PW3), Hiralal (PW4), Ashok Ghanghoriya (PW5), Narendra Tiwari (PW6) and other material available on record, it was found by the trial Court that there was previous enmity and litigation in regard to an agricultural land was going on between the parties and that First Information Report of the incident was lodged on 4/11/2002 after a period of 5 days, whereas, on the same day, just after an hour at 9 p.m., her husband had reached home. As admitted by the prosecutrix, both of them had not apprised anyone of the incident and next morning she had performed her routine chores as usual. The said conduct of the prosecutrix and her husband was quite unnatural. She also admitted in para 14 of her evidence that the respondent after holding her from behind, switched off the light, subjected her to sexual intercourse for 5 minutes and had thereafter escaped. Further, Dr. Sandhya (PW1), who had prepared medical report (Ex.P/2), did not find any external or internal injury on the body of the prosecutrix. She deposed that it was not possible to opine as to recent sexual assault upon the prosecutrix. In the aforesaid premises, the trial Court found that either the prosecutrix was a consenting party or possibility of false implication of the respondent could not be ruled out.
We agree with the findings recorded by the trial Court.
It is well settled that the judgment of acquittal should not be disturbed unless the conclusions drawn on the basis of evidence brought on record are found to be grossly unreasonable or manifestly perverse or palpably unsustainable.
Taking into consideration the reasons assigned on the face of evidence on record establishing the aforesaid facts and circumstances, the view taken by the learned trial Court was apparently a possible view. As such, no interference is called for with the order of acquittal in question.
The application, therefore, stands dismissed in limine.
(AJIT SINGH) (B.D.RATHI)
JUDGE JUDGE
(and)