CRR No. 39 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH -- CRR No. 39 of 2011 Date of decision: 18.05.2011 Surjit Singh and another ........ Petitioners Versus State of Punjab and another .......Respondent(s) Coram: Hon'ble Ms Justice Nirmaljit Kaur -.- Present: Mr. Devinder Singh, Advocate for the petitioners Ms Gurveen H Singh, Addl. A G Punjab for the respondent State -.- 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporter or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Nirmaljit Kaur, J. This is a revision petition against the judgment dated 21.12.2010 (P1) passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Barnala, whereby, the revision filed by the petitioners against the judgment dated 20.05.2009 (P3) passed by the Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Barnala was dismissed and were ordered to be convicted for RI for one year under Section 411 IPC. While praying for setting aside of the aforesaid judgment, learned counsel for the petitioner has raised two fold arguments. Firstly, the accused were arrested on 21.03.2001 at District Barnala. A perusal of the record would show that neither FIR nor any record which prove theft of CRR No. 39 of 2011 2 alleged stolen articles at Jagraon, District Ludhiana was brought on record. Therefore, it is not proved on record that the articles allegedly recovered from the petitioners were ever stolen. Secondly, Inspector Surinder Pal Singh (PW2) is the complainant as well as the Investigating Officer of the present case. As per the record, Inspector Surinder Pal Singh, lodged the FIR and being a complainant, he was not well within right to investigate the case himself. The learned Courts failed to take into consideration the said well settled principle of law and erred in holding the revisionists as guilty by believing police version. The case of prosecution is that on 21.03.2001, Inspector Surinder Pal Singh along with other police official were present at District Barnala. He received a secret information that on 03.03.2011 some body had snatched the jewellary from Jewellar- Deepak Kumar Verma and that the said snatching has been done by Surjit Singh son of Gurnam Singh and Parminder Singh son of Baljit Singh. It was further informed him that these accused were getting together to commit similar offence and were sitting in the grain market. Ruqa was sent against both the petitioners. On the basis of which, a formal FIR was registered. Both the petitioners were caught on the spot. They disclosed their names as Surjit Singh and Parminder Singh, respectively. Thereafter, in furtherance of the disclosure statement made by Surjit Singh, it came to light that they had “snatched jewellary and currency notes from a jeweler at Jagraon and has kept concealed his share of jewellary in a factory near Geeta Woolen Mill in a ploythene bag. Separate statement of Surjit Singh under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act was CRR No. 39 of 2011 3 recorded and Surjit Singh also put his signatures on the same. Thereafter, another statement of Parminder Singh was recorded, in which, he disclosed that he and Surjit Singh had snatched jewelry and currency note from a Jewellar at Jagraon and had kept concealed his share of Jewellary in Barren. Separate statement of Parminder Singh under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act was recorded and he also puts his signatures on the same. DW1-Deepak Kumar was called to identify his jewellar. He stepped into the witness box and deposed that he supplies the jewellary in some areas. He disclosed that on 03.03.2011, he was returning to Jagroan after supplying the gold articles and reached near the bus stand Jagraon at about 6.30 pm. He had golden earrings of 537 grams and had Rs.22,000/- with him in cash, when he stepped down from the bus, then two persons who are present in the Court today and told him that they are police officials and they want to conduct his personal search and both of them took him to a side and they snatched his bag, in which, he had kept his golden earrings and other golden articles and they started demanding money from him and he requested them to make a telephonic call to his house and when he returned from shop after making the call at his house, both the persons were not there. They fled away with his bag and then he came to know from newspaper that CIA staff Barnala had recovered some jewellary and went to CIA Staff Barnala on 09.04.2001, where Gurpartap Singh Naib Tehsildar was also present and two seizure memos were opened in the presence of Naib Tehsildar Gurpartap Singh and some other articles of jewellary was mixed with said golden articles and he was asked to identify his jewellary and he identified his jewellary out of the mixed jewellary. CRR No. 39 of 2011 4 It is, therefore, apparent from the above that both the accused persons are police officials and are working with the CIA Branch in the State of Punjab. In the present case, both the petitioners Surjit Singh and Parminder Singh have been found in possession of the stolen articles of gold. The said recovery has been effected from them. Both of them are police officials. Stolen articles have been duly identified by the owner Deepak Kumar. The entire incident has been proved beyond doubt. Moreover, it is duly noted in the order dated 26.05.2009 passed by the Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Barnala that the FIR was duly registered on the statement of Deepak Kumar on 03.03.2001against the unidentified persons when the said gold articles were snatched from Deepak Kumar. Thus, both the arguments of the learned counsel for the petitioners that no FIR was registered and that the complainant in the present case was Investigating Officer Surinder Pal Singh himself cannot be sustained from the facts of the present case. In fact, it is found to be otherwise. Even the last prayer of the learned counsel for the petitioner to reduce the sentence cannot be accepted in view of the fact that the present petitioners have indulged in the commission of offence even though they were police officials. They are expected to maintain law and order but have themselves adopted the path of crime. No other argument was raised. Dismissed. (Nirmaljit Kaur) Judge 18.05.2011 mohan