Chhattisgarh High Court: The order of acquittal of accused persons passed by the trial court was upheld in an appeal by a Division Bench comprising of Prashant Kumar Mishra and Ram Prasanna Sharma, JJ.
The accused persons were tried for offences punishable under Sections 148 and 341, 294, 323, 307, 506 (2) all read with Section 149 IPC. During investigation, the injured persons were sent for medical examination and it was found that injuries sustained by them were only simple injuries. The statement of witnesses did not support each other. From the records it could be only said that some incident appeared to have taken place on issue of giving side to the truck or wrong parking of the truck.
The High Court considered the record in detail and was of the view that it was not a case where the accused persons formed unlawful assembly to achieve the common object with intention to committing the crime. And since the accused persons did not form any unlawful assembly, each of them was responsible for his own act. However, from the evidence it was not clear as to which accused had caused which particular injury to the injured persons. The Court found the story of the prosecution to be an exaggeration of facts. The Court held that in such circumstances and lack of clarity in evidence as to acts attributable to accused persons, the trial court was right in acquitting the accused persons of the charges framed. The Court held that the evidence was not clear so as to record a finding of guilt against the accused persons.
Accordingly, the acquittal appeal filed by the State was dismissed and the order of acquittal of the accused persons passed by the trial court was upheld. [State of Chhattisgarh v. Gurudeep, 2018 SCC OnLine Chh 271, decided on 13.03.2018]
