IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD TUESDAY, THE TWENTYNINETH DAY OF NOVEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD Criminal Appeal No.1331 of 2008 Between: The State represented by the Public Prosecutor, High Court of A.P., Hyderabad .. Appellant AND Patan Naushad Khan and 3 others .. Respondents JUDGMENT: The Criminal Appeal is directed against the acquittal of the accused 1 to 4 in S.C.No.189 of 2006 on the ﬁle of VIII Additional District and Sessions Judge (Fast Track Court), Vijayawada, by the judgment dated 06-12-2006 in respect of the oﬀences punishable under Sections 328 and 379 read with Section 34 or Section 411 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The Inspector of Railway Police, Railway Police Circle, Guntur, filed the charge sheet in Crime No.16 of 2006 of Tenali Railway Police Station alleging that Motepalli Veerabhadra Rao travelling in Tamilnadu Express on 14-10-2005 was accommodated by another person at request to sit on the luggage rack. That person gave a cream biscuit to Veerabhadra Rao at about 1.30 A.M. on eating which he became unconscious. When he regained his consciousness on 16-10-2005, he found himself hospitalized in Government Hospital, Chennai, and his bag with cash of Rs.10,000/- and Nokia 2100 cell phone, clothes and oﬃcial documents were found missing. On the report of Veerabhadra Rao, the crime was registered and transferred to Tenali Railway Police Station, who again registered the same. The accused 1 to 4 were arrested before mediators on 21-04-2006 and a zip bag with cash of Rs.1500/- was recovered. The accused were remanded to judicial custody and then police custody and the property was identiﬁed by Veerabhadra Rao. Test identiﬁcation parade of the accused could not be conducted in spite of requests and hence, the charge. On the II Metropolitan Magistrate for Railways, Vijayawada, taking cognizance of the oﬀences in PRC.No.12 of 2006, the accused were furnished with the copies of documents and on committal to the Court of Session, the case was made over to the trial Court. The trial Court framed charges under Section 328 and 379 read with Section 34 or alternatively Section 411 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code to which the accused pleaded not guilty. During trial, PWs.1 to 6 were examined and Exs.P.1 to P.5, M.O.1 and M.O.2 were marked. The accused denied the incriminating circumstances appearing in the evidence against them when they were examined under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and no defence evidence was produced. The trial Court rendered its judgment noting that none of the alleged victims knew the accused earlier and the victims claimed to have been cheated by being administered some stupefying drug through biscuits given to them. The absence of conduct of any test identiﬁcation parade for identiﬁcation of the accused by the alleged victims was taken adverse note of. The victims were noted to have identiﬁed only the 2nd and 3rd accused before the Court and six cases ﬁled against the four accused were noted to be lacking clarity. It was also noted by the trial Court that mentioning the details of various crimes in the proceedings alleging copies of ﬁrst information reports from diﬀerent railway police stations to have been received was unnatural and failure to examine any independent mediator for search and seizure vitiated the alleged search and seizure. The evidence was opined to be planted and the identiﬁcation of the accused before the Court was, hence, not relied on. Concluding that the prosecution failed to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, the trial Court acquitted them. The State challenges the same through the learned Public Prosecutor in this appeal contending that PWs.1 to 4 supported the prosecution story and PW.1 identiﬁed the accused and the stolen property. The necessary ingredients should have been, therefore, considered to have been proved and hence, it is desired that the acquittal be reversed. Heard Sri Rudresh Deshpande, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor for the appellant and V.R. Reddy Kovvuri, learned counsel representing the 2nd respondent, while the respondents 1, 3 and 4 did not enter appearance before the Court in spite of service of notice of the appeal. The point for consideration is whether the acquittal of the accused needs to be reversed on any reasonable and valid grounds? The Inspector of Police, Gunthakal Railway Police Station spoke about the arrest of the accused and recording their confessions under a Panchanama and his very claims describing each item of property to be relating to a speciﬁed crime of a particular Railway Police Station are ex facie unnatural as noted by the trial Court. The alleged information with PW.6 about the details of the crimes of diﬀerent railway police stations was admittedly not mentioned in his case diary and though he has no personal interest, apart from his oﬃcial duties in pursuing the prosecution, he cannot also be termed as a totally independent witness. PW.5 throws no light on the involvement of the accused, while PW.4 spoke about the conduct of identiﬁcation proceedings for identiﬁcation of M.O.1 by PW.1. PW.3 spoke about the registration of Ex.P.1 report as a crime and the evidence of PWs.3 to 5 has thus no bearing on the complicity of the accused. PW.2 is supposed to be the mediator for the confession of the four accused about diﬀerent oﬀences committed by them concerning diﬀerent police stations and admittedly PW.2 was not given any requisition by the police to act as a mediator. PW.2 could not give the description of the articles, which were recovered and he did not have any documentary evidence to show that he travelled to Tirupathi from Gunthakal on that day. This uncorroborated version does not inspire any conﬁdence and PW.1, the alleged victim, while narrating the incident, did not indulge in any identiﬁcation of any of the accused before the Court. The evidence of PW.2 and PW.5 alone having something to do with the identity of the accused and the same being not satisfactory, the trial Court cannot be considered wrong in concluding the absence of proof beyond reasonable doubt against the accused in respect of the oﬀences with which they were charged. If so, the acquittal cannot be converted into conviction in this appeal. Accordingly, the Criminal Appeal is dismissed. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 29-11-2011 Ksn