Telangana High Court
The State Of A.P., vs P.Balaguruva Reddy And 5 Others on 1 August, 2024
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THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE K.SURENDER
AND
THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE J. ANIL KUMAR
CRIMINAL APPEAL No.707 OF 2015
JUDGMENT:(per Hon'ble Sri Justice K.Surender)
1. The State is aggrieved by the order of acquittal of the respondents/accused for the offences under Sections 302, 498-A of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.
2. Heard Sri Jithender Rao Veeramalla, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for appellant-State and the learned counsel for the respondents.
3. Briefly, the case of the prosecution is that on 19.04.2008, A-1 was married to deceased and at the time of marriage dowry of Rs.1,75,000/-was given. Thereafter, all the accused/A-1 to A-6 started harassing her for additional dowry. A-1 threatened that he would marry another girl, if the demand was not met. Thereafter, an amount of Rs.20,000/- was given twice. However, the accused were not satisfied with the amount that was provided by P.W.1/father of the deceased and continued to harass her.
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4. On the date of incident, P.W.1 and others went to Balaji Hospital and found that the deceased was dead and there was head injury, ligature to the neck and blood oozing from the head. Having seen the deceased, P.W.1 filed a complaint before the Police. The Police registered the case for the offences under Sections 498-A and 302 of IPC. Having concluded the investigation, charge sheet was filed for offences under Sections 498-A and 302 of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act,
5. Learned Sessions Judge framed charges for the said offences and having examined the material witnesses P.W.1 to P.W.11 and also on the basis of Exs.P.1 to P.7 found that the prosecution has failed to prove the case of culpable homicide amounting to murder. In fact, the evidence of Doctor/P.W.9 clearly indicates that the death was on account of suicide. P.W.9 stated in his chief examination that the cause of death as asphyxia due to hanging and suicide. The said witness was not treated hostile to the prosecution case. Further, the material witness/P.W.4 who is the Watchman of the Apartment stated that the deceased died three years prior to his 3 evidence and it was A-1 and two others who were carrying the deceased to Balaji hospital.
6. Learned Public Prosecutor laid emphasis on the evidence of P.W.4 stating that he saw A-1 and two others taking the body of the deceased to the hospital which clearly indicates the complicity of the accused. Alternatively, learned Public Prosecutor submits that it is the case under Section 306 of IPC and this Court in appeal has to hear the arguments under Section 306 of IPC, which is punishable under Section 216 of Cr.P.C.
7. With due respect to the learned Public Prosecutor, there is no provision of framing a charge by the appellate Court under Section 216 of Cr.P.C, when the trial Court had already found that there was no offence under Section 302 of IPC. It is not the case of prosecution in the trial Court that deceased committed suicide. No petition was preferred by the prosecution in the trial Court to frame charge under Section 306 of IPC. The prosecution cannot project a new case during appeal arguments.
8. Further, in any case of acquittal, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Pulicherla Nagaraju alia Nagaraja 4 Reddy vs. State of A.P. 1 held that unless findings of the Court below are perverse and are not based on record, the question of interfering in the appeal does not arise. The relevant portion of the order reads as under:-
"It is now well settled that the power of the High Court in an appeal from acquittal is no different from its power in an appeal from conviction. It can review and consider the entire evidence and come to its own conclusions by either accepting the evidence rejected by the trial court or rejecting the evidence accepted by the trial court. However, if the High Court decided to depart from the conclusions reached by the trial court, it should pay due attention to the grounds on which acquittal was based and state the reasons as to why it finds the conclusions leading to the acquittal, unacceptable. It should also bear in mind that (i) the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused is fortified by the findings of the trial court; (ii) the accused is entitled to benefit of any doubt; and (iii) the trial court had the advantage of examining the demeanour of the witnesses. The crux of the matter, however, is whether the High Court is able to give clear reasons to dispel the doubt raised, and reject the reasons given by the trial court [See : Sher Singh vs. State of U.P. (AIR 1967 SC 1412); Dargahi vs. State of U.P. AIR 1973 SC 2695;
Ravinder Singh vs. State of Haryana (AIR 1975 SC 856); and Labh Singh vs. Sate of Punjab (AIR 1976 SC 83)". 1 (2006)11 SCC 444 5
9. There are no grounds to interfere with the findings of the trial Court. The State appeal fails and accordingly, stands dismissed.
_________________ K.SURENDER, J ___________________ J. ANIL KUMAR, J Date: 01.08.2024 dv