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1 - 9 of 9 (0.30 seconds)Section 34 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860 [Entire Act]
Section 308 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860 [Entire Act]
Section 354 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860 [Entire Act]
Pawan Kumar vs The Delhi Administration on 17 August, 1987
It is an admitted fact that the incident took place in a residential colony
and at the time of incident, many public persons were present at the spot.
However, despite availability no independent public witness has been
joined in the investigation at any point of time. No serious effort on part of
investigating agency to join independent public witnesses in the
investigation appears to have been taken. Admittedly no notice under
Section 160 Cr.P.C. was served to any of the public persons who refused
to join investigation nor their names or addresses were noted by the
investigating officer. It is a well settled proposition that nonjoining of
public witness shrouds doubt over the fairness of the investigation by
police. Section 100 (4) of the Cr.P.C. also casts a statutory duty on an
official conducting search to join two respectable persons of the society.
Same has not been done in the present case. This casts a doubt on the
fairness of the investigation. Reliance is placed on paragraph 6 of the
judgment in Pawan Kumar v. The Delhi Administration, 1989 Cri.L.J.
127, wherein the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi had observed as under:
" ... According to Jagbir Singh, he did not join any
public witness in the case while according to Kalam
Singh, no public person was present there. It hardly
stands to reason that at a place like a bus stop near
Subhas Bazar, there would be no person present at
a crucial time like 07.30 p.m. when there is a lot of
rush of commuters for boarding the buses to their
respective destinations. Admittedly, there is no
impediment in believing the version of the Police
officials but for that the prosecution has to lay a
good foundation. At least one of them should
deposed that they tried to contact the public
witnesses or that they refused to join the
investigation.
The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
Appabhai And Anr. vs State Of Gujarat on 5 February, 1988
This Court is, however, conscious that the prosecution case cannot be
thrown out or doubted on the sole ground of nonjoining of public
witnesses as public witnesses keep themselves away from the Court
unless it is inevitable, as has been held in Appabhai and another v.
State of Gujarat, AIR 1988 SC 696. However, in the present case, it is
not only the absence of public witnesses which raises a doubt on the
prosecution but there are other circumstances too, as discussed
hereinafter, which raise suspicion over the prosecution version.
Section 160 in The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 [Entire Act]
Section 313 in The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 [Entire Act]
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