Crl. Rev. No. 359 of 2003 (O&M) -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH -.- 1.Crl. Rev. No. 359 of 2003 (O&M) Date of decision:- 6.1.2011 Yash Pal ... Petitioner Versus State of Haryana ... Respondent 2.Crl. Rev. No. 379 of 2003 (O&M) Pardeep Kumar ... Petitioner Versus State of Haryana ... Respondent CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GURDEV SINGH Present:- None for the petitioner. Mr. Shekhar Mudgal, AAG, Haryana. Gurdev Singh, J (oral) The above noted revision petitions have been preferred by the petitioners/accused-Yash Pal and Pardeep Kumar against the judgment dated 1.2.2003 passed by Sessions Judge Ambala, vide which he dismissed the appeal preferred by the present accused and others against the judgment dated 23.7.2002/24.7.2002 passed by Special Railway Magistrate, Haryana, convicting the accused for the offence under Section 3 of the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act') and sentencing them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and to pay a fine of `1000/- each and in default thereof to further undergo imprisonment for a period of three months. Crl. Rev. No. 359 of 2003 (O&M) -2- The facts, in brief, are that on 1.2.1994 secret information was received by Railway Protection Force regarding the commission of theft of the railway properties. On receipt of that information a raiding party was constituted headed by Subhash Chand S.I PW-2. For conducting the raid the party was present near the shunting gate of Jagadhri Railway Workshop, when at about 10.05AM, three persons came there in a car make Maruti bearing registration No. DDB 2654. All of them alighted from the car and went towards shunting gate. Thereafter one of them entered the workshop by scaling the wall. After about 10 minutes he knocked at the gate, after placing some goods in a bag. Two of those person went towards that gate and picked up two bags. The third person came out of the workshop after scaling the wall. All of them started coming towards the car after lifting those bags. When they saw the police party, the bags were thrown by them and they went running towards the car. Two of them were apprehended, who disclosed their names as Surinder Kumar and Pardeep Kumar. One bag was recovered from the possession of Pardeep Kumar, which was found to contain aluminum axle covers with “I.R.” word engraved thereon. The other bag, which was thrown at the spot by the third accused whose name was found to be Ram Kishan, contained four axles front covers of aluminium on which the same words were engraved. The accused could not produce any document for keeping those articles in their possession. Those bags were sealed and were taken into possession. On 2.2.1994. Pardeep Kumar accused was interogated and he suffered a disclosure statement that he had sold some of the stolen aluminium axle front covers to Subhash Chand-accused. Thereafter those covers were recovered from the shop of Crl. Rev. No. 359 of 2003 (O&M) -3- that accused and were taken into possession. On 6.2.1994 Ram Kishan accused was arrested alongwith said car. After the completion of enquiry the complainant was presented before the Special Railway Magistrate. As the complaint was filed by a public servant in the discharge of his official duties, so the accused were summoned without recording any preliminary evidence. From the pre-charge evidence produced by the complainant, sufficient grounds were found for presuming that all the accused committed offence under Section 3 of the Act. They were charged accordingly, to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. To prove the guilt of the accused the complainant examined Suresh Pal Charge Man PW1, Subhash Chand Kataria SI PW2, Sukhbir Singh Ex-ASI PW3, Vishok Gupta Inspector PW4, Constable Mohd. Iftekhar Aadil PW5, Head Constable Ram Rattan PW6, Constable Sharda Pal Singh PW7, Constable Satbir Singh PW8, ASI and Vijay Kumar PW9. After the conclusion of the evidence by the complainant, the accused were examined and their statements were recorded under Section 313 Cr.P.C by Special Railway Magistrate. The incriminating circumstances appearing against them in the prosecution evidence were put to them in order to enable them to explain the same. They denied all those circumstances and pleaded their innocence. They stated that no such articles were recovered from them and during their custody police obtained signatures on 4/5 blank papers. They were called upon to enter on their defence, but they did not produce any such evidence. After going through the evidence so produced on the record and hearing learned counsel for both the sides, learned Special Railway Crl. Rev. No. 359 of 2003 (O&M) -4- Magistrate convicted and sentenced the accused, as aforesaid. No one appeared on behalf of the petitioners at the time of arguments. As the revision petitions had been admitted to be heard on merits, so the same are being decided on merits with the assistance of the State counsel. The petitioners have taken the grounds in revision that no offence under the Act can be said to have been committed by them as no such property belonging to railways was recovered from their possession and that at the time of recovery no independent witness was associated and that the registration number of the car alleged to have been recovered from the possession of Ram Kishan-accused was different from registration number of the car in which the accused are said to have come to the place of occurrence. According to Section 3 of the Act every person who is found or is proved to have been in possession of any railway property reasonably suspected of having been stolen or unlawfully obtained is liable to be punished, unless he proves that the railway property came to his possession lawfully. Therefore, initial onus was upon the complainant to prove that the property so alleged to have been recovered from the possession of the accused was railway property and was reasonably suspected to have been stolen or unlawfully obtained. Evidence was produced in the form of the statements of officials of Railway Protection Force that the bags containing the stolen articles were taken out of the workshop. In addition to that it was also proved that words "I.R" were engraved on each and every article. These words stand for "Indian Railways" and are being used exclusively by Crl. Rev. No. 359 of 2003 (O&M) -5- the railways. Some of the stolen artiles were recovered from Subhash Chand-accused after disclosure statement was suffered by Pardeep Kumar- accused. Even on those articles such words were found to have been engraved. The following two ingredients stand proved from the evidence produced by the complainant:- (1)the accused were found in possession of the railway property. (2)That railway property is reasonably suspected to have been stolen or unlawfully obtained. After that initial onus was discharged by the complainant, it was for the accused to prove that they came into possession of this property lawfully. No such evidence was produced by them. The offence under Section 3 of the Act is proved beyond any reasonable doubt from the evidence produced by the complainant. The findings recorded by the Special Railway Magistrate and the Sessions Judge in the appeal do not suffer from any illegality. No ground is made out for interfering in the conviction and sentence so recorded. The revision petitions are dismissed accordingly. Records be returned forthwith. January 6, 2011 (Gurdev Singh) tripti Judge