HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE G.BHAVANI PRASAD CRIMINAL APPEAL No.1651 of 2005 JUDGMENT: The appeal is against the judgment in S.C.No.272 of 2003 on the file of the Court of Assistant Sessions Judge at Tanuku, dated 23/02/2004 acquitting the accused of the offences punishable under Sections 447, 354, 323, 506 part-2 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The factual back ground for the appeal is that Vanga Venkata Manga Tayaru and the accused are immediate neighbours with longstanding civil disputes and cases pending between them concerning a pathway. It was alleged that on 06/01/2003 at about 6-30 AM when Manga Tayaru was collecting water at the public tap of the gram panchayat, the accused 1 to 5 started quarrelling with her in pursuance of their common intention, abused her, insulted her and criminally intimidated her. They also had torn her clothes and attempted to remove her saree, thus, outraging her modesty and while trespassing into the site of Manga Tayaru, the accused also caught hold of her tuft of hair and beat her severely. On her cries for help, V.Satyanarayana, V.Nageswara Rao, B.Srinivasa Rao, B.Venkataramayya, M.Satyanarayana, D.Babji, Ch.Ramakrishna and N.Satyanarayana rushed to the scene and on seeing them, the accused escaped. The private complaint filed by Manga Tayaru was referred by the Court to the police, who registered Crime No.12 of 2003 of Attili Police Station and investigated into the same. The accused were arrested and sent for judicial custody and charge sheeted before the Court. After furnishing copies of the documents to the accused on their appearance, the learned Magistrate committed the case to the Court of Session and in the Court of Session, the accused denied the charges framed against them and claimed to be tried. P.Ws.1 to 11 were examined and Exs.P-1 to P-5 and Ex.D-1 were marked during trial and the accused did not adduce any other defence evidence, after they denied all the incriminating circumstances appearing in the evidence against them, when they were examined under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The trial Court rendered the impugned judgment noting that there is a joint lane in front of the house of the accused family in which the people of the locality had a right of passage. It also noted that there were many criminal cases against Manga Tayaru and Satyanarayana at the instance of the first accused which resulted in acquittal and the first accused also filed a suit for mandatory injunction for the removal of a pipe line laid by the gram panchayat in the common lane in which he also sought for a permanent injunction against Manga Tayaru and others from exercising any rights of passage in the lane. The suit was dismissed holding that the lane was joint and when the staff of the gram panchayat attempted to make the joint lane fit for human passage, the accused obstructed. The strained relationship between the families led to the quarrel and the incident. The trial Court appreciated the evidence in that background and observed that the evidence disclosed that P.Ws.2 to 8 appeared to have reached the scene after the incident and to be not eye-witnesses. The trial Court also noted that individual overt acts of the accused were not specified in the statements of the witnesses recorded by the police and it further observed that the version of the witnesses was contradictory in material particulars. While extracting the various discrepancies, the trial Court also further noted that P.Ws.7 and 8 turned hostile and if P.W.1 was really beaten with such severity as alleged, she would have been referred to a medical officer and a wound certificate would have been obtained. The trial Court further observed that the delay between the alleged incident on 06/01/2003 and the filing of the complaint on 02/02/2003 was not explained and in the background of various documents produced by the accused relating to the civil disputes, the guilt of the accused cannot be presumed to have been established beyond all reasonable doubt on such evidence. The trial Court consequently acquitted the accused. The State through the learned Public Prosecutor challenges the said judgment mainly complaining against the non-acceptance of the evidence of P.Ws.1 to 3 by the trial Court merely on the ground of earlier disputes. Sri K.Venkateswara Rao, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor and Sri C.Praveen Kumar, learned counsel for the respondents are heard at length. The point for consideration is whether the prosecution proved the guilt of the accused or any of them for the offences punishable under Sections 447, 354, 323 and 506 part-2 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code beyond reasonable doubt. While the incident allegedly occurred on 06/01/2003 at about 6-30 PM, a private complaint was filed before the Magistrate’s Court only on 02/02/2003. The claim that a complaint was given to the police soon after the incident but the police did not act on the same was not corroborated through any oral or documentary evidence to show the presentation of such report by the aggrieved to the police at any time prior to the private complaint being filed into Court. Thus, the abnormal delay between the alleged incident and setting the criminal law into motion, cannot be considered to have been satisfactorily explained and such delay giving scope for deliberation, consultation and fabrication makes it necessary that the prosecution version should be subjected to very careful and close scrutiny before acceptance. The admitted case of the prosecution itself is about the longstanding disputes between the family of the alleged victim and the family of the accused concerning an alleged joint lane and a number of civil and criminal cases being fought between the families since long. The admitted extremely strained relationship between the parties also makes it necessary as a rule of prudence that the version of the interested witnesses can be accepted only if satisfactorily corroborated by independent evidence or unmistakable circumstances. P.W.1, the alleged victim, did not in her evidence indicate as to what would have been the immediate provocation for the accused indulging in the offending overt acts against her. P.W.2 is her father-in-law and P.W.3 is her husband who stated that they were sleeping in the house when they were woken up on hearing the cries of P.W.1, and thus, obviously they were not eye- witnesses to the incident since inception. The admissions of P.Ws.2 and 3 about their ignorance as to what happened before they were attracted to the scene coupled with the interestedness of P.Ws.1 to 3 also should be taken into account in appreciating their evidence. The improvements made in the evidence of P.Ws.1 to 3 as noted by the trial Court, which need no replication, do not add to the credibility of the said witnesses and P.Ws.4 to 6 were also found by the trial Court to be interested in the victim and to be her witnesses in the earlier litigation. The hostility of P.Ws.7 and 8 further throws a doubt on the acceptability of P.Ws.1 to 6 and the evidence of an elder as P.W.9 or the Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police as P.W.10 about his investigation do not lend any further support to the other evidence. In the absence of any prompt reporting to the police or the Court and in the background of the longstanding disputes between the parties coupled with the absence of any medical evidence about any bodily injury caused to P.W.1 due to such severe assault on her as alleged and the absence of any material evidence in the shape of the alleged torn clothes of P.W.1 indicating any outrage of her modesty, the trial Court cannot be considered to have gone wrong in not accepting the guilt of the accused to have been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, the impugned judgment cannot be interfered with in this appeal. Accordingly, the Criminal Appeal is dismissed. ___________________ G.BHAVANI PRASAD, J 24th November 2009 SKM