State Of U.P vs Atar Singh And Ors

It was also noted that there was no corroboration to the prosecution version by any independent witnesses. Nathu Singh (PW-2) was resident of another village who claimed to be present at the place of occurence. He stated that he had come to the village to meet his relative. According to him the house of Rajpal was situated at a distance of 15-16 paces from the place of incident. The High Court noted that the existence of Rajpal's house in the vicinity of place of occurrence had not been shown in the site plan. The High Court found that some parts of his statement could not be re-conciled with other parts eg. that he had reached the village of incident at 6.30 a.m. and was present at the time of incident which took place about 12 hours later. His statement was to the effect that he had gone to his son- in-law Rajpal as the latter was about to go to his father-in-law's house and he wanted to send some cows to his father-in-law. He wanted to send this information to his father-in-law but his cousin-in-law was not available. He also stated that after some time he had returned to his village. The High Court found his presence to be not established. The High Court also noted that Sohan Pal (PW-3) who claimed to be an eye witness was the brother of PW-1.

The High Court noted that even though in the FIR names of some other persons have been noted as witnesses, none of them had been examined. The High Court was of the view that statement of the deceased recorded by the investigating officer under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (in short the 'Cr.P.C.') cannot be treated to be the dying declaration. The investigating officer (PW-11) noted that when he reached the spot in the morning of 5.5.1979 subsequent to the lodging of the FIR at about 3.15 a.m. he had found the deceased, Sohan Pal and Katori to be lying there in injured condition. He recorded the statement of the deceased (Exh.Ka.

The High Court also noted another factor which according to it was significant, i.e. the presence of large number of injuries on accused Mohar Singh for which no explanation was offered. This according to the High Court cast a genuine doubt about the actual time, place, number of assailants and weapons for the injuries. The High Court noted that injuries on accused Mohar Singh were not superficial and some of them were even incised wounds. The investigating officer had admitted that Mohar Singh was arrested on 6.5.1979. The High Court found it rather unusual that he was produced for medical examination before a Doctor Shiv Kumar Saxena (PW-5) on 5.5.1979 at 5.20 p.m. by a constable of the Police Station. Therefore, the High Court noted that if there was no explanation offered as to why he was not arrested on 5.5.1979, the FIR was claimed to have been lodged at 3.15 a.m. on that day. The High Court noted that though PW-1 and PW-3 were stated to be injured witnesses in the background facts the prosecution version was highly improbabilised. The evidence of PW-2 was found to be not truthful. As a cumulative result of the discussions the High Court found that the prosecution has not been able to substantiate its version.

Considering the cumulative effect of circumstances which have weighed with the High Court to direct acquittal, it cannot be said that the view taken by the High Court is not a plausible view. That being so, we are not inclined to interfere with the order of acquittal. The appeal deserves to be dismissed which we direct.