Criminal Appeal No.359-SB of 1999 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Criminal Appeal No.359-SBof 1999 Date of decision: 19th July, 2011 Manjit Singh .......Appellant Versus State of Punjab ........Respondent Criminal Revision No.838 of 1999 Balbir Chand .......Petitioner Versus State of Punjab .......Respondent BEFORE: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI Present: Mr. Rahul Vats, Advocate Amicus Curiae for the appellants in Crl. Appeal No. 359-SB of 1999 Mr. K.S.Dadwal, Advocate for the petitioner in Crl. Revision No. 838 of 1999. Mr. S.S.Gill, DAG, Punjab for the respondent-State. Ajay Tewari,J.(Oral) These two cases have resulted from cross version cases. Criminal Appeal has been filed by Manjit Singh, assailing his conviction under Sections 342, 506 and 354 of the Indian Penal Code (for short the 'IPC') while Criminal Revision has been filed by the complainant Balbir Chand against that portion of the order whereby the Manjit Singh has been acquitted for an offence under Section 376 of the IPC. Criminal Appeal No.359-SB of 1999 2 As per the allegations, Rajni daughter of Balbir Chand had gone to get milk at about 7:00 p.m and when she did not come back till 10:30 p.m her family started looking for her and observed her coming out of the house of neighbor and she reported that the appellant Manjit Singh had forcibly taken her to his house and raped her. The case of Manjit Singh was that no rape was committed. In fact there was no sexual inter course at all but the girl had voluntarily came to meet the boy and on having been discovered had made this false allegation. The medical evidence tendered to show that in fact no sexual intercourse had taken place. There were no injuries on the person of the prosecutrix and that is why the trial court --- rightly in the opinion of this court -- acquitted Manjit Singh of the offence under Section 376 of the IPC. In these circumstances Criminal Revision No. 838 of 1999 titled as Balbir Chand vs. State of Punjab is dismissed. As regards the appeal, in my considered opinion, once the allegation of rape is deleted, the entire prosecution case stands on slippery ground. It is highly unlikely that Manjit Singh would have forcibly taken the prosecutrix to a room where they stayed for 3½ hours and no violence was perpetrated or even attempted. There is also discrepancy in the statements in that the prosecutrix alleged that Manjit Singh ran away when her uncle came, while this was not so mentioned by the other witnesses. The learned trial court had also Criminal Appeal No.359-SB of 1999 3 referred to other improvements made by the prosecutrix and her family. Under the circumstances, Criminal Appeal No. 359-SB of 1999 appeal is allowed and the appellant is acquitted. [AJAY TEWARI] JUDGE 19th July, 2011 Shivani kaushik