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CASE TITLE – Babu Sahebagouda Rudragoudar & Ors. v. State Of Karnataka

CASE NUMBER – Criminal Appeal No. 985 of 2010

DATED ON – 19.04.2024

QUORUM – Justice Sandeep Mehta & Justice B.R. Gavai

 

FACTS OF THE CASE

The complainant, Chanagouda (PW-1) owns agricultural lands and a house in the village, Babanagar, Bijapur, Karnataka. It is alleged by the prosecution that in the morning of 19th September, 2001, the deceased Malagounda, son of the complainant, along with labourers/servants Revappa (PW-2), Siddappa (PW-3), Hiragappa (PW-4) and Suresh (PW-5) had gone to put up a bund (check dam) in their land. The work continued till 3.30 p.m. and thereafter, the four servants (PW-2, PW-3, PW-4 and PW-5), along with the deceased Malagounda and the complainant(PW-1) proceeded to the village. They had reached near the land of one Ummakka Kulkarni at about 4.00 pm, where A-1, A-2, A-3 and A-4 suddenly came around and exhorted that the way the complainant party had murdered Sangound, they would take revenge upon the members of the complainant party in the same manner. A-1 holding a jambai, A-2 holding an axe, A-3 holding a sickle and A-4 holding an axe, belaboured Malagounda, as a result of which he fell down. The assailants thereafter threatened the complainant(PW-1) that if he tried to intervene, he too would meet the same fate as his son. Fearing for his own life, the complainant(PW-1) ran away and hid behind the bushes in order to avoid being beaten by the accused. After sunset, the complainant(PW-1) returned to the village and narrated about the incident to his family members. A written complaint of this incident came to be submitted by the complainant(PW-1) at Tikota Police Station on 20th September, 2001 at 4.00 am in the morning whereupon FIR(Exhibit P-10) was registered and investigation commenced. After conclusion of investigation, a charge sheet came to be filed against the appellants(A-1, A-2, A-3) and other accused(A-4, A-5 and A-6) for the offences punishable under Sections 143, 147, 148, 506(2) and Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC in the Court of jurisdictional Magistrate. Upon hearing the arguments advanced by the prosecution and the defence counsel and after thoroughly appreciating the evidence available on record, the trial Court proceeded to hold that the prosecution could not prove the charges levelled against the accused beyond all manner of doubt and acquitted all the six accused vide judgment dated 23rd July, 2005. The State preferred an appeal under Section 378(1) read with 378(3) CrPC challenging the acquittal of the accused. The learned Division Bench of High Court of Karnataka partly allowed the said appeal vide judgment dated 14th September, 2009 and while reversing the acquittal of the accused A-1, A-2 and A-3 as recorded by the trial Court, convicted and sentenced them to life imprisonment and a Rs.50,000 fine for each of the convicts.

 

ISSUE

Whether the Learned Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court was justified in overturning the Trial Court’s Decision.

 

CONTENTIONS BY THE APPELLANTS

The Learned counsel representing the appellants urged that the view taken by the High Court in reversing the acquittal of the appellants recorded by the trial Court by a well-reasoned judgment is totally contrary to the settled principles laid down by the same Court regarding scope of interference in an appeal against acquittal. It was also contended that neither the disclosure statements nor the recovery memos bear the signatures/thumb impressions of the accused and hence, the recoveries cannot be read in evidence or attributed to the accused/appellants. He also stated that the acquittal can be reversed only if the findings recorded by the trial Court are found to be patently illegal or perverse or if the only view possible on the basis of the evidence available on record points towards the guilt of the accused. If two views are possible, the acquittal recorded by the trial Court should not be interfered with unless perversity or misreading of evidence is reflected from the judgment recording acquittal. The Learned counsel further urged that the learned Division Bench of the High Court, while rendering the judgment reversing acquittal of the appellant barely referred to the findings on the basis of which the trial Court had acquitted the accused by extending them the benefit of doubt. Rather, the High Court went on to record its own fresh conclusions after re-appreciation of the evidence and hence, the impugned judgment deserved to be set aside.

 

CONTENTIONS BY THE RESPONDENT

The learned counsel appearing for the respondent State vehemently and fervently opposed the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the appellants. He urged that learned Division Bench of the High Court, while considering the appeal against acquittal, thoroughly reappreciated the evidence available on record and arrived at an independent and well considered conclusion that the depositions of the eye witnesses PW-1, PW-2, PW-4, PW-6 and PW-15 were convincing and did not suffer from any significant contradictions or infirmities so as to justify the decision of the trial Court in discarding their evidence and acquitting the accused of the charges. He stated that the so called contradictions and discrepancies highlighted by the trial Court in the evidence of the eyewitnesses for doubting their evidentiary worth are trivial and insignificant and acquittal of accused as recorded by the learned trial Court disregarding the testimony of the eyewitnesses is based on perverse and unacceptable reasoning. Learned counsel thus urged that the High Court was perfectly justified in reversing the acquittal of the accused appellants by the impugned judgment which does not require interference in this appeal.

 

COURT ANALYSIS AND JUDGEMENT

The Hon’ble Supreme Court after going through the impugned judgement of a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court stated that none of the essential mandates governing an appeal against acquittal were adverted to by the learned Division Bench which proceeded to virtually decide the appeal as a first Court on independent appreciation of evidence and recorded its own findings to hold the accused appellants(A-1, A-2 and A-3) guilty of the charge under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC and sentenced them to imprisonment for life, and thus, on the face of record, the judgment of the High Court causing interference with the acquittal of the accused appellants as recorded by the trial Court is contrary to the principles established by law. They were of the firm opinion that neither the disclosure memos were proved in accordance with law nor the recovery of the weapons from open spaces inspire confidence and were wrongly relied upon by the High Court as incriminating material so as to reverse the finding of the acquittal recorded by the trial Court, and also stated that that the view taken by the trial Court in the judgment dated 23rd July, 2005 recording acquittal of accused is a plausible and justifiable view emanating from the discussion of the evidence available on record, and that the trial Court’s judgment does not suffer from any infirmity or perversity. Hence, the High Court was not justified in reversing the well-reasoned judgment of the trial Court and that the impugned judgment dated 14th September, 2009 rendered by the High Court could be not be sustained and was reversed, and held that the accused/appellants were hereby acquitted of all the charges.

 

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Judgement Reviewed by – Gnaneswarran Beemarao

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