Delhi District Court
State vs . Naresh & Anr. on 30 August, 2022
IN THE COURT OF SH. GAURAV SHARMA
METROPOLITAN MAGISTRATE-05,
CENTRAL, TIS HAZARI COURTS, DELHI
CIS No. 291519/2016
State Vs. Naresh & Anr.
FIR No. 54/2012
PS : Darya Ganj
U/s. 356/379/411/34 IPC
1) The date of commission of offence : 15.03.2012
2) The name of the complainant : Rubina Kausar
3) The name & parentage of accused persons : 1.KarnailSingh
S/o Sh. Suraj
2.Naresh Singh @ Satya @ Raju
S/o Sh. Ram Singh
4) Offence complained of : U/s 356/379/411/34 IPC
5) The plea of accused persons : Pleaded not guilty
6) Final order : Both Accused Convicted
Date of Institution : 19.05.2012
Judgment reserved on : 20.08.2022
Judgment pronounced on : 30.08.2022
FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 1 of 18
JUDGEMENT
30.08.2022
1. Both the accused are hereby Convicted under all the offences they have been charged with.
2. Despite being a decade removed from the incident in question, the case against the accused persons is seen to be surefooted. Evidence is circumstantial in nature but it is nevertheless seen to contain a sense of semblance sufficient to pin down the accused persons for the offences alleged. Inconsistencies in witness statements here and there can not be said to have swept out the underlying coherent nature of prosecution story, thereby establishing beyond reasonable doubt the involvement of the accused persons.
FACTS
3. Pithily put, the case of the prosecution is that on 15.03.2012 at about 07:50 PM at N.S. Marg, Opposite Golcha Cinema, Darya Ganj, Delhi, within the jurisdiction of PS Darya Ganj, both the accused in furtherance of their common intention, committed theft by way of snatching of gold chain from the neck of the complainant, which was later found / recovered from the person of accused Naresh, when he alongwith co-accused were arrested by police officials of PS Karol Bagh at Padam Singh Road, in front of Frontier Showroom, Karol Bagh, Delhi, thereby committing offences under Sections 356/379/411/34 IPC.
4. After investigation, charge-sheet was filed. Copy of the same was supplied to both the accused in compliance of Section 207 Cr.P.C. Thereafter, charge was framed against them FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 2 of 18 under Sections 356/379/411/34 IPC on 05.09.2012, to which both the accused pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. It is also seen that charge u/s 75 IPC was also framed against both the accused since they had previous convictions as well. Also, since accused Naresh had absconded during trial and was apprehended only later, separate charge under Section 174A IPC was also formed against him on 13.04.2022, to which he pleaded guilty and did not claim trial.
5. In support of its version, prosecution has examined a total of nineteen witnesses. PE was closed on 15.04.2017. Statement of accused Karnail Singh and Naresh u/s 281 Cr.P.C r/w Section 313 Cr.P.C was recorded on 19.08.2019 and 13.04.2022 respectively wherein they claimed to be innocent and denied the allegations against them. Accused persons opted not to lead DE. During this while, considerable time lapsed on account of non-appearance of accused persons since accused Karnail Singh was intermittently in custody in multiple other cases whilst Naresh had stopped appearing altogether and was ultimately declared an absconder.
6. I have heard Ld. APP for State and Ld. Counsel for both the accused as well. I have also perused the record carefully.
FINDINGS
7. Ingredients of provisions of law herein invoked, that is u/s 356/379/411 IPC are self explanatory and have been laid down by superior courts from time to time. The absence of a person's consent at the time of moving of his property by another and the presence of dishonest intention in so taking at the time, are the essential ingredients of the offence of theft u/s 379 IPC. Section 356 IPC on the other hand punishes a person who uses criminal force or assault on another person to commit theft of the property that person is FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 3 of 18 having or carrying. Section 411 IPC provides for culpability of a person who dishonestly receives or retains stolen property with him, knowing about the tainted source/origins of the same.
8. For the present case in question, it is seen that the allegations against the accused persons are that they, riding on a motorcycle and wearing helmets, snatched the gold chain of the complainant and fled away from the spot when she was waiting for her bus at Golcha Cinema area in Daryaganj. However, both the said accused persons were nabbed down and arrested within hours of the incident in the area of Karol Bagh by the police officials who had intercepted them whilst they were driving away on motorcycle in suspicious circumstances. It is therefore seen that for affixing culpability on the accused persons, prosecution case is highly dependent on the deposition of the sole eye witness, the complainant, from whom the chain was snatched, purportedly by the accused persons and who saw them whilst committing the said offence when they were wearing helmets. Such evidence of the complainant therefore has to be read in context, keeping in mind the attending circumstances. Moreover, evidence of the said witness, together with that of the other witnesses also who deposed in court is seen to have spanned over a period of more than a decade. In view of the same, the incongruities in their depositions also are to be looked at from the stand point of normal forgetfulness that time brings upon one's memory. Given the said background and before adverting to the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, individually and collectively, it shall be useful to note what the Hon'ble SC has laid down recently in Shahaja @ Shahajan Ismail Mohd. Shaikh vs State Of Maharashtra 2022 (SC) 596 Cr. Appeal 739 OF 2017 decided on 14 July 2022. Specifically as to the testimony of an eye witness, it was laid down in the said judgement by the Hon'ble Court as follows :
FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 4 of 18"27. The appreciation of ocular evidence is a hard task. There is no fixed or straight-jacket formula for appreciation of the ocular evidence. The judicially evolved principles for appreciation of ocular evidence in a criminal case can be enumerated as under:
I. While appreciating the evidence of a witness, the approach must be whether the evidence of the witness read as a whole appears to have a ring of truth. Once that impression is formed, it is undoubtedly necessary for the Court to scrutinize the evidence more particularly keeping in view the deficiencies, drawbacks and infirmities pointed out in the evidence as a whole and evaluate them to find out whether it is against the general tenor of the evidence given by the witness and whether the earlier evaluation of the evidence is shaken as to render it unworthy of belief. II. If the Court before whom the witness gives evidence had the opportunity to form the opinion about the general tenor of evidence given by the witness, the appellate court which had not this benefit will have to attach due weight to the appreciation of evidence by the trial court and unless there are reasons weighty and formidable it would not be proper to reject the evidence on the ground of minor variations or infirmities in the matter of trivial details.
III. When eye-witness is examined at length it is quite possible for him to make some discrepancies. But courts should bear in mind that it is only when discrepancies in the evidence of a witness are so incompatible with the credibility of his version that the court is justified in jettisoning his evidence.
IV. Minor discrepancies on trivial matters not touching the core of the case, hyper technical approach by taking sentences torn out of context here or there from the evidence, attaching importance to some technical error committed by the investigating officer not going to the root of the matter would not ordinarily permit rejection of the evidence as a whole.
V. Too serious a view to be adopted on mere variations falling in the narration of an incident (either as between the evidence of two witnesses or as between two statements of the same witness) is an unrealistic approach for judicial scrutiny.FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 5 of 18
VI. By and large a witness cannot be expected to possess a photographic memory and to recall the details of an incident. It is not as if a video tape is replayed on the mental screen. VII. Ordinarily it so happens that a witness is overtaken by events. The witness could not have anticipated the occurrence which so often has an element of surprise. The mental faculties therefore cannot be expected to be attuned to absorb the details. VIII. The powers of observation differ from person to person. What one may notice, another may not. An object or movement might emboss its image on one person's mind whereas it might go unnoticed on the part of another.
IX. By and large people cannot accurately recall a conversation and reproduce the very words used by them or heard by them. They can only recall the main purport of the conversation. It is unrealistic to expect a witness to be a human tape recorder. X. In regard to exact time of an incident, or the time duration of an occurrence, usually, people make their estimates by guess work on the spur of the moment at the time of interrogation. And one cannot expect people to make very precise or reliable estimates in such matters. Again, it depends on the time-sense of individuals which varies from person to person.
XI. Ordinarily a witness cannot be expected to recall accurately the sequence of events which take place in rapid succession or in a short time span. A witness is liable to get confused, or mixed up when interrogated later on.
XII. A witness, though wholly truthful, is liable to be overawed by the court atmosphere and the piercing cross examination by counsel and out of nervousness mix up facts, get confused regarding sequence of events, or fill up details from imagination on the spur of the moment. The sub conscious mind of the witness sometimes so operates on account of the fear of looking foolish or being disbelieved though the witness is giving a truthful and honest account of the occurrence witnessed by him. XIII. A former statement though seemingly inconsistent with the evidence need not necessarily be sufficient to amount to contradiction. Unless the former statement has the potency to discredit the later statement, even if the later statement is at FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 6 of 18 variance with the former to some extent it would not be helpful to contradict that witness.
[See Bharwada Bhoginbhai Hirjibhai v. State of Gujarat, 1983 Cri LJ 1096 : AIR 1983 SC 753, Leela Ram v. State of Haryana, AIR 1999 SC 3717, and Tahsildar Singh v. State of UP, AIR 1959 SC 1012]
28. To put it simply, in assessing the value of the evidence of the eye witnesses, two principal considerations are whether, in the circumstances of the case, it is possible to believe their presence at the scene of occurrence or in such situations as would make it possible for them to witness the facts deposed to by them and secondly, whether there is anything inherently improbable or unreliable in their evidence. In respect of both these considerations, the circumstances either elicited from those witnesses themselves or established by other evidence tending to improbabilise their presence or to discredit the veracity of their statements, will have a bearing upon the value which a Court would attach to their evidence. Although in cases where the plea of the accused is a mere denial, yet the evidence of the prosecution witnesses has to be examined on its own merits, where the accused raise a definite plea or puts forward a positive case which is inconsistent with that of the prosecution, the nature of such plea or case and the probabilities in respect of it will also have to be taken into account while assessing the value of the prosecution evidence. ....................
30. In the aforesaid context, we may refer to a decision of this Court in the case of State of U.P. v. Anil Singh, AIR 1988 SC 1998, wherein in para 15, it is observed thus :
"15. It is also our experience that invariably the witnesses add embroidery to prosecution story, perhaps for the fear of being disbelieved. But that is no ground to throw the case overboard, if true, in the main. If there is a ring of truth in the main, the case should not be rejected. It is the duty of the court to cull out the nuggets of truth from the evidence unless there is reason to believe that the inconsistencies or falsehood are so glaring as utterly to destroy confidence in the witnesses It is necessary to remember FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 7 of 18 that a Judge does not preside over a criminal trial merely to see that no innocent man is punished. A Judge also presides to see that a guilty man does not escape. One is as important as the other Both are public duties which the Judge has to perform."
9. Having noted as aforesaid the principles of appreciating ocular testimony on record, i.e. of that of the eye witness as well as the police witnesses, in as far as such police witnesses gave ocular evidence as to narrating the circumstances under which the accused persons were apprehended, we now proceed to evaluate evidence on record. PW1 / Complainant Rubina Kauser was examined first wherein she stated that on the day of the incident in question, she and her husband had proceeded from their house at around 7.20 AM in the morning on a rickshaw to the schools they both were teachers in. The husband of the witness got down in between to go to his school nearby and the witness was waiting for her bus opposite Golcha Cinema. At that time, it was stated by the witness that she saw two persons riding on a motorcycle frequently coming and going around the place she was standing. She added that after sometime when the area was a bit clear , the bike riders came and snatched her chain from her neck and fled, whereupon the witness tried to chase the accused persons, but not to be. Despite the accused persons having ran away on the bike, the witness claimed that she saw the accused persons, could identify them and even noted down the motorcycle number used by the accused persons. The witness added that she went to her husband at his school thereafter, which was just across the road and subsequently, both of them went to the police station, where subject FIR was lodged. It was further deposed by the witness that CCTV footage of the area in which the incident was captured was shown to her the next day, but the same was unclear. As per the witness, she was informed by the police officers 3-4 days later that accused persons had been arrested and her chain had been recovered from them. The witness participated in identification proceedings of the accused persons at Jail premises and correctly identified FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 8 of 18 both of them before the Ld. MM conducting the proceedings. Likewise, the witness also identified her chain during identification proceedings of the case property before the Ld. MM, whereupon the same was released also to the complainant. The witness identified the accused persons correctly during trial also as being present in court. It is seen therefore, that the witness spoke clearly and pointedly in her examination in chief. During her cross examination as well, she remained steadfast as to her version. She was predominantly questioned over the fact that though the accused persons were admittedly wearing helmets at the time of the incident, witness still was able to see their faces to identify them. It was explained by the witness that the accused persons, before indulging into the explicit act of snatching, were roaming around at the place and frequently coming over around her and during that time, she had seen the accused persons. It's true that one may have difficulty in recognising faces of people wearing helmets, but the explanation offered by the witness does not seem to be entirely out of place. If the accused persons were indeed hovering around her just before the incident, she could indeed have seen them, despite their helmets on, and if that be so, her identifying them later should not be believed to be an outlandish accomplishment. Her reasoning sounds reasonable and gels well with the circumstances under which the offence is stated to have been committed. Likewise for the motorcycle number, it was asked of the witness as to why she had not disclosed the same to the police on the day of the incident itself. The witness explained that she was shocked at the time with regards the entire incident. Being so, it was deposed by her that she immediately had gone to her husband feeling fearful of the things and thereafter, to the police station for registering the FIR. In such a scenario, her telling the police about the vehicle number on the very next day does not sound to be unreasonable. A woman, going about her regular routine, suddenly robbed of her gold chain in broad daylight can indeed be assumed to be in a state of panic at the time and after her regaining senses, giving details about the incident on the next day itself to the police without further delay, does not appear to this FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 9 of 18 court to be out of place. Apart from this, the witness was given suggestions as to the falsity of the judicial TIP (test identification proceedings) qua the accused persons and giving false bills for identification of her chain, whilst getting it released. The witness denied all such suggestions. Other than that, witness was also asked about as to when was she informed about the accused persons having been apprehended and her chain being recovered from them, the number of times she was called by the police for investigation purposes and things of a like nature, to which she replied satisfactorily. Considering the overall testimony of the witness therefore, it is seen that it does indeed seem to be containing the 'ring of truth' as it were, in terms of the standard laid down in the judgement of Shahaja @ Shahajan Ismail Mohd. Shaikh (supra) noted above. As such therefore, the witness version is held to be reliable, in as far as the manner in which the offence was committed as well as with regards identifying the accused persons and her case property later.
10.PW2/ASI Surender Pal, PW3/Ct. Amarjeet, PW4/Ct. Sandeep, PW5/Ashok Kumar, PW6/ SI Satender Singh and PW14/HC Om Prakash deposed as to the manner and subsequent procedure, by and under which the accused persons were caught red handed on the day of the incident in question itself . It was deposed by the said witnesses that on the said day, two pulsar motorcycles were seen near about ZA Garden, Saraswati Marg, Karol Bagh at around 09.00 AM, being ridden by two persons each. Upon suspicion, both such motorcycles were pointed out by the police officials to stop. However, it is claimed by the witnesses, that both the motorcycles and their riders tried to flee away instead, and one of them was in fact successful in doing so. But, it is informed that the other motorcycle, on which the accused persons herein were riding, got imbalanced and fell, upon which they were caught and arrested by the police officials present at the spot and the stolen chain of the complainant was recovered from the person of accused Naresh, apart from pistol and FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 10 of 18 live cartridges being recovered from them, for which separate offences at other police stations were also lodged against the accused persons. The apprehension of the accused persons was stated to have been reported to the police officials at PS Darya Ganj, who confirmed such chain being stolen in the subject FIR, where upon the accused persons were handed over and formally arrested in the present case. The record of the case pertaining to PS Karol Bagh, in which the accused persons were apprehended was also proved on record by the Ahlmad of the court concerned PW5/Ashok Kumar. It is seen that testimonies of all the police witnesses as to the manner in which the accused persons were arrested remained broadly in sync with the prosecution version. There were certain off- roadings as it were also in the evidences of such witnesses but none of them could be stated to be material enough to completely dislodge the veracity of the state case. There were discrepancies in the testimonies of the witnesses, say with regards the case property/chain of the complainant being recovered from the pocket of accused Naresh or Karnail vis a vis what was shown in the respective seizure memos. It is seen that both the accused were riding together on the motorcycle and were able to be stopped after much effort by police officials, after which they had fallen down and overpowered. In such a scenario, the police witnesses mixing up names as to what was recovered from which accused cannot be considered a fatal flaw to discard the otherwise consistent nature of ocular evidence of the police witnesses as to the circumstances leading up the apprehension of the accused persons. Moreso, when the witnesses' version corroborated the complainant version too that the accused persons at the time of their apprehension and arrest were wearing black helmets, were driving upon the motorcycle of the kind as explained by the complainant, and that also, shortly after the alleged incident had happened with the Complainant at a place not so far from where the snatching took place, the reliability of the evidence adduced on record by the police witnesses from PS Karol Bagh cannot be doubted with. In fact, it is also seen that such witnesses even deposed as FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 11 of 18 to minor details as to surroundings of the places where the accused persons were arrested, the shops / residential area in the vicinity, the place itself with tea stall around and things of a like nature. Efforts at nit-picking, almost pettifogging by the Ld. Counsels for the accused persons to discredit the police witnesses of PS Karol Bagh were negated and suitable explanations offered. It is therefore seen, that these witnesses also, who had apprehended the accused persons shortly after the incident of snatching had taken place with the complainant, deposed coherently. Barring a few ups and downs qua minor details, their overall testimonies remained intact on material points, bearing the 'ring of truth' around them in terms of the judgement noted above in Shahaja @ Shahajan Ismail Mohd. Shaikh (supra) as to the ocular/almost graphic account given by them qua the manner in which the accused persons were arrested. No grave contradiction was extracted out from the evidence of such witnesses and therefore, they are also held to be reliable and trustworthy in so far as connecting and corroborating the complainant version.
11.PW9/HC Sunil, PW10/Ct. Satyapal, PW11/HC Amar Pal, PW12/HC Laik Ram, PW13/HC Manoj Kumar and PW18/IO ASI Virender Kumar were the police witnesses who were examined from PS Darya Ganj, where the subject FIR of the Complainant stands registered. They deposed as to the proceedings undertaken subsequent to the registration of the subject FIR by the complainant on the day of the incident in question and so also, with regards the formal arrest of the accused persons, upon being informed as to their apprehension by the police officials concerned at PS Karol Bagh. The depositions of the witnesses were predominantly with regards the procedural aspects of investigation, which were not seriously impugned in their cross examination as well. Much was made about as to the exact timings when such witnesses had reached the spot on the day of the incident in question, the mode in which the complainant was examined, the fact of her being shown the CCTV footage of the area where the incident happened and the fact, that FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 12 of 18 the photographs of the accused persons were already shown to the complainant before they were identified before the Ld. MM during TIP. All such questions were well explained in reply and all such suggestions denied by the witnesses. It was also enquired from the witnesses as to when had the information been received qua apprehension of accused persons at PS Karol Bagh and the subsequent procedure adopted to formally arrest them in the subject FIR. The same also was satisfactorily explained by the witnesses. It is therefore seen that testimonies of police witnesses from PS Darya Ganj also stuck to the line of the state case. Moreover, it is noted that since the arrest of the accused persons was made by police officials at PS Karol Bagh, the witnesses from PS Darya Ganj could not have in any which way deposed as to facts surrounding the arrest of the accused persons. As such therefore, their testimonies were more of formal in nature and could not be refuted in their respective cross examinations either. Considering the same, the evidence of such witnesses is held to be trustworthy.
12.During examination of all the police witnesses, from PS Karol Bagh as also from PS Darya Ganj, it was contended by the Ld. Counsel of the accused persons that no public persons were made witnesses to the recovery proceedings and as such therefore, the recovery shown from the them is a planted one and the version of the police witnesses cannot be relied upon. The said contention however, is entirely out of place. This is so since it is no longer res integra that the testimony of a police witnesses is on an equal footing with the testimony of any other witness, provided, it is clear, coherent and reliable. In this regard, it shall be gainful to note what has been laid down by the Hon'ble SC in State Government of NCT of Delhi Vs. Sunil and another (2001) 1 SCC 652 as follows :
FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 13 of 18"In this context we may point out that there is no requirement either under Section 27 of the Evidence Act or under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to obtain signature of independent witnesses on the record in which statement of an accused is written. The legal obligation to call independent and respectable inhabitants of the locality to attend and witness the exercise made by the police is cast on the police officer when searches are made under Chapter VII of the Code. Section 100(5) of the Code requires that such search shall be made in their presence and a list of all things seized in the course of such search and of the places in which they are respectively found, shall be prepared by such officer or other person and signed by such witnesses. It must be remembered that search is made to find out a thing or document which the searching officer has no prior idea where the thing or document is kept. He prowls for it either on reasonable suspicion or on some guess work that it could possibly be ferreted out in such prowling. It is a stark reality that during searches the team which conducts search would have to meddle with lots of other articles and documents also and in such process many such articles or documents are likely to be displaced or even strewn helter-skelter. The legislative idea in insisting on such searches to be made in the presence of two independent inhabitants of the locality is to ensure the safety of all such articles meddled with and to protect the rights of the persons entitled thereto. But, recovery of an object pursuant to the information supplied by an accused in custody is different from the searching endeavour envisaged in Chapter VII of the Code. This Court has indicated the difference between the two processes in the Transport Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad & anr. Vs. S. Sardar Ali & Ors. (1983 SC 1225). Following observations of Chinnappa Reddy J. can be used to support the said legal proposition: Section 100 of the Criminal Procedure Code to which reference was made by the counsel deals with searches and not seizures. In the very nature of things when property is seized and not recovered during a search, it is not possible to comply with the provisions of sub- section (4) and (5) of section 100 of the Criminal Procedure Code. In the case of a seizure [under the Motor Vehicles Act], there is no FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 14 of 18 provision for preparing a list of the things seized in the course of the seizure for the obvious reason that all those things are seized not separately but as part of vehicle itself. Hence, it is a fallacious impression that when recovery is effected pursuant to any statement made by the accused the document prepared by the investigating officer contemporaneous with such recovery must necessarily be attested by independent witnesses. Of course, if any such statement leads to recovery of any articles it is open to the investigating officer to take the signature of any person present at that time, on the document prepared for such recovery. But, if no witness was present or if no person had agreed to affix his signature on the document, if is difficult to lay down, as a proposition of law, that the document so prepared by the police officer must be treated as tainted and the recovery evidence unreliable. The Court has to consider the evidence of the investigating officer who deposed to the fact of recovery based on the statement elicited from the accused on its own worth. We feel that it is in archaic notion that actions of the police officer should be approached with initial distrust. We are aware that such a notion was lavishly entertained during British period and policemen also knew about it. Its hang over persisted during post- independent years but it is time now to start placing at least initial trust on the actions and the documents made by the police. At any rate, the Court cannot start with the presumption that the police records are untrustworthy. As a proposition of law the presumption should be the other way around. That official acts of the police have been regularly performed is a wise principle of presumption and recognized even by the legislature. Hence, when a police officer gives evidence in Court that a certain article was recovered by him on the strength of the statement made by the accused it is open to the Court to believe the version to be correct if it is not otherwise shown to be unreliable. It is for the accused, through cross-examination of witnesses or through any other materials, to show that the evidence of the police officer is either unreliable or at least unsafe to be acted upon in a particular case. If the Court has any good reason to suspect the truthfulness of such records of the police the Court could certainly take into account the fact that FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 15 of 18 no other independent person was present at the time of recovery. But, it is not a legally approvable procedure to presume the police action as unreliable to start with, nor to jettison such action merely for the reason that police did not collect signatures of independent persons in the documents made contemporaneous with such actions."
13.Having noted as above therefore, it can be safely concluded that there is no rule of law which enjoins upon the Court not to rely upon the testimony of the police officials. The only requirement in doing so is to be even more cautious, circumspect and vigilant, before placing any reliance on their testimonies. In other words, their testimony is to be subjected to careful scrutiny, perhaps even more, than accorded to the testimony of any other public person. On the touchstone of these principles, this court is of the considered opinion that in the instant case, there is no ground to disbelieve the testimonies of all the police personnel/witnesses qua the manner, place and time in which the accused persons were arrested and recovery made from them by the police officials at PS Karol Bagh, and later, when the accused persons were formally arrested at PS Darya Ganj, as discussed above already.
14.Apart from the above, it is seen that PW7/Nadeem and PW15/Praveen Kumar were examined who deposed and proved on record bills and similar documents qua the complainant having purchased the chain in question from them. Both the witnesses were cross examined primarily to show that the recovery made was a planted one upon the accused persons and the same was of never the chain that belonged to the complainant. Such assertions however are seen to be problematic in two fronts so as to inure to the benefit of the defence of the accused persons. One, the complainant identified the case property / chain correctly during judicial identification proceedings, leaving no room of doubt as to its identity and the fact that the same belonged to her, having been snatched FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 16 of 18 away during the incident in question. And two, the testimonies of both PW7 and PW15 were categorical, that despite them not showing any specific mark of identification on the said chain or showing all accounts maintained at their respective shops qua them, they could identify the case property as being well conversant with their trade and occupation. PW7 also in fact went in to add and give details as to him having dealt with the complainant from before and knowing that the chain belonged to her. Considering the same, versions of both the witnesses are found to be broadly in line with the state case.
15.PW8/Ms. Kiran Gupta, Ld. MM deposed as to the identification proceedings conducted by her when the complainant identified both the accused correctly. The said deposition was not objected to.
16.PW16/Shiv Dayal and PW17/Ghanshyam, both being from PS Sarai Rohilla proved on record the relavent record with respect to the accused persons being prosecuted in different FIRs at PS Sarai Rohilla for the other recoveries made form the accused persons at the time of their apprehension by the police officials at PS Karol Bagh. The said depositions were formal in nature.
17.Finally, PW19/Sagar Goel CCTV was examined in capacity of having supplied to the IO the CCTV footage of the incident in question in the form of a CD. The witness testimony was sought to be assailed on the point that no formal appointment letter was made to its company as being authorised to install CCTV cameras are the place during that time, meaning thereby that the footage supplied was not genuine. Though it was conceded by the witness that there was no specific appointment letter as such, but nevertheless, it was also stated that the company to which the witness belonged was performing outsourcing work for Delhi Police since long. All other suggestions put to the witness in this regard FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 17 of 18 were duly denied. Even otherwise, it is seen that during the testimony of the complainant herself, it was conceded that such CCTV footage was not exactly clear. But since the identification of the accused persons by the complainant was done not based upon such CCTV footage, but during Judicial TIP before the Ld. MM concerned, the role of the CCTV footage is already watered down. As such therefore, the testimony of this witness as well does not add up anything to the defence of the accused persons.
18.In view of the discussion as above, it is seen that the prosecution has been able to keep together it's version rather well and has established it's case beyond reasonable doubt, given the attending circumstances. Accused persons are seen not to have been able to show gaps in the prosecution story, which could be said to cast a dent on the overall version of the state and its veracity. Further, it's a matter of record, that both the accused persons are previous convicts also and the same has not been assailed by even them. In view of the overall circumstances of the case therefore, accused Karnail Singh and Naresh, both, are hereby Convicted for the offences u/s 356/379/34 IPC together with Section 75 IPC. Since conviction of the accused persons is made under Section 356/379 IPC, charge framed in alternative u/s 411 IPC is seen not to be made out. As to accused Naresh, it is seen that he has already pleaded guilty for having absconded during court proceedings. He is therefore convicted under Section 174A IPC separately also.
19.Copy of judgment be supplied to both the Convicts free of cost forthwith.
Announced in the Open Court Digitally signed by GAURAV SHARMA GAURAV Date: SHARMA on 30.08.2022 2022.08.31 15:01:54 +0530 (GAURAV SHARMA) Metropolitan Magistrate-05 THC/Central/Delhi Judge Code : DL00855 FIR No. 54/2012 PS Darya Ganj State v Naresh & Anr. Page 18 of 18