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Srl. No. of the case & Date of 10581/2023 dt. 06.11.2023 institution Date of commission of offence 14.10.2023 Name of the complainant Sh. Aman Preet Singh Name of the accused Deepak S/o. Sh. Ram Charan R/o. Vegabond Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, Parliament Street, New Delhi Nature of offence complained of U/s. 379/411 IPC & Sec. 3 PDPP Act, 1984 Plea of the accused person Accused pleaded not guilty Date of reserving order 04.06.2024 Final Order Convicted Date of order 24.06.2024 BRIEF STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR DECISION OF THE CASE:-
Provided that the court may, for reasons to be recorded in its judgment, award a sentence of imprisonment for a term of less than six months."
Perusal of the above provision shows that there two kinds of punishments envisaged for the offence under Section 3(1) PDPP Act and Section 3(2) PDPP Act. It has to be considered that the property in question is a public property or not and whether the said property falls in the category of Section 3(1) or 3(2) PDPP Act. In order to attract the aforesaid provision, it also needs to be examined if mischief was caused regarding a public property.
25. Mischief has been defined under Section 425 IPC which lays down that there needs to be an intent or knowledge of wrongful loss or damage to a property alongwith destruction of the said property causing a decrease in its value. Hence, even if intention to cause damage or destruction to the property in question is not present, knowledge on the part of the accused that his act is likely to cause damage or destruction to public property is enough to attract the provision of mischief or in the present case, Section 3 PDPP Act. In the case at hand, it has been sufficiently proved that the accused had removed three fiber sheets from the foot over bridge installed by the NDMC. It has been argued that the IO has not taken any photographs of the spot in order to demonstrate the manner of destruction of public property. However, as already discussed above, eye-witness as well as other evidence on record has clearly established the fact that theft in the present was not merely committed by moving the fiber sheets from the bridge but also by dismantling it. Hence, it is not the case of the prosecution that the accused merely moved the fiber sheets in order to commit theft but rather dismantled them from their position and rendered the sheets useless. PW4 has deposed that the foot over bridge was constructed by the NDMC for the benefit of the people. It can not be assumed that the fiber sheets had no use by being attached with the aforesaid bridge. It definitely lend purpose towards its use by the common public. Hence, dismantling the same would definitely cause destruction or change in the property within the meaning of Section 425 IPC read with Section 3 PDPP Act. As one would reiterate, any defect in investigation cannot strike at the root of the prosecution's case when there is enough material in support of it.
26. The public property regarding which mischief had been committed is the foot over bridge of the NDMC. PW4 has already deposed that the same was constructed by the NDMC which leaves no doubt to the fact that the property in question was indeed a public property within the meaning of Section 3 PDPP Act. However, the said property does not fall within list given in Section 3(2) PDPP Act. Hence, the property would fall within Section 3(1) PDPP Act by default.
27. In view of the above discussion, it has been established by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt that the accused committed theft of three fiber sheets from the foot over bridge installed for public use and is therefore, convicted for offence punishable under Section 379 IPC and Section 3(1) PDPP Act.