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1980 DIGILAW 74 (CAL)

Chowdhury Bharat Singh v. Ram Sankar Misra

1980-03-11

MANOJ KUMAR MUKHERJEE

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JUDGMENT The two accused opposite parties were placed on trial before the learned Assistant Sessions Judge, 9th Court, Alipore to answer charge under Section 307 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The prosecution allegation was that on June 9, 1978 they, along with 3/4 others, in furtherance of their common intention, caused grievous hurt to Shyamacharan Pandey, Security Officer of the Empire Jute Mill, Titagarh with such intention and under such circumstances that if by that act they had caused his death, they would have been guilty of murder. 2. The accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charges and their defence was that they were illegally retrenched by the Mill and were not being paid subsistence allowance inspite of directive of the State Government, the Government ordered reinstatement of the retrenched employees of the Mill but the Management was not complying with the said order for which they (the accused persons), as the leaders of the Union, were championing their cause, and this enraged the Management for which they were falsely implicated in the case. 3. In support of its case, the prosecution examined eleven witnesses and the defence none. On consideration of the evidence adduced by the prosecution, the learned Judge held that it failed to bring home the charge beyond all reasonable doubts and acquitted the accused persons. Aggrieved thirty the petitioner, who is the de facto complainant, moved this Court and obtained the present Rule. 4. I am not unmindful of the limited powers of this Court while sitting in revision over a judgment of acquittal passed in a case instituted upon a police report as observed by the Supreme Court in the case of (l) Kshetra Basi Samal v. State of Orissa, ( AIR 1970 SC 272 ); but within that limited scope I find that this is a fit case, where this Court should exercise its revisional powers as there has been a flagrant miscarriage of justice, and order a retrial. 5. The learned Judge misread the evidence, relied upon some apparent contradictions which were not real and for unsustainable reasons disbelieved the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, more particularly those of the victim Shyamacharan Pandey (P.W.9) and Surendra Pratap Singh (P.W.5) and Bindeswari Pashi (P.W.7) who sought to corroborate the evidence of the victim. 5. The learned Judge misread the evidence, relied upon some apparent contradictions which were not real and for unsustainable reasons disbelieved the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, more particularly those of the victim Shyamacharan Pandey (P.W.9) and Surendra Pratap Singh (P.W.5) and Bindeswari Pashi (P.W.7) who sought to corroborate the evidence of the victim. As I feel that any detailed comments about the findings of the learned Judge may make an unconscious impression upon him, I refrain from pointing out all the infirmities in the judgment except one or two, which are patent. 6. In distrusting the case of the prosecution as to the actual place of occurrence, the learned Judge relied upon the First Information Report, wherein it was allegedly stated that the incident took place at Brahmasthan. I have carefully gone through the First Information Report and find therefrom that the said place has been mentioned as the address of the accused Jatasankar, and not as the place of occurrence. The learned Judge commented upon the failure of the Investigating Officer to prepare a sketch map in respect of the place of occurrence. The learned Judge will be advised to note that the actual place of occurrence shown in a sketch map prepared by an Investigating Officer, is not evidence being hit by Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The learned Judge also distrusted the case of the prosecution for the apparent contradiction as to the time of the actual incident and made such comments thereupon. In the context of the evidence adduced by the prosecution witness in the instant case the contradiction of half and one hour is not of much consequence. However, for the reasons earlier mentioned, I refrain from making further comments about the impugned judgment except that the same is a perverse one. 7. In view of the above discussion, the application succeeds and the Rule is made absolute. The impugned judgment is hereby set aside and the case is reminded back to the learned Assistant Sessions Judge for a retrial of the accused opposite parties, on the charges already framed, according to law. The learned Judge will dispose of the case as expeditiously as possible. Let the records be sent down early.