State of H.P. vs Ramesh Chand

Surinder Singh, J.—Heard learned Additional Advocate General and gone through the record.

Respondent was acquitted of the offences punishable u/s 279 Indian Penal Code, Section 180 and 184 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Hence the instant appeal by the State.

In short, prosecution case can be stated thus. On 13.9.2002, a written complaint was filed by PW1 Raman Sharma that while traveling in his Maruti Car No. HP39A-2508 along with Smt. Rekha Sharma, respondent, who was driving the bus No. HP-53-1275 hit the door of the Maruti which got damaged. Police registered a case which culminated into FIR Ext. PW4/A. Mechanical report Ext. PW1/A of the Bus in question was obtained. Site plan Ext. PW7/A was also prepared. Bus was taken into possession along with its documents and later released on Sapurdari.

The challan was presented in the Court against the respondent for his trial for the offences aforesaid.

Notice of accusation was put to the accused to which he denied.

To prove its case, prosecution examined its witnesses and respondent was also examined u/s 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. He denied that on the day of alleged occurrence, he was driving the vehicle in question.

No evidence in defence was led and at the end of the trial, he was acquitted.

At the very out set it is worth mentioning that the mechanical report of the Car of the complainant was not obtained. Further the complaint Ext. PW1/A though refers to the registration number of the offending Bus but there is no mention of the name of the driver. After hitting the car bus was taken off the sight.

As PW1 complainant also did not name the respondent as the driver of the Bus. Co-passenger PW2 Rekha Sharma, Lecturer in the College also did not identify the respondent. She stated that at the time of the alleged incident, she remained in the car. Lateron bus was chased and they over-took the bus and saw the driver. She was confronted to this portion of the statement with her earlier statement recorded u/s 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which did not find mention. So this is material contradiction and improvement in her statement which cannot be relied upon. The statement of PW3 Suresh Sharma also suffers from the same vice. He could also not identify the driver of the alleged offending vehicle. Further PW4 Balwant Singh did not support the case of the prosecution as such he was declared hostile. The Investigating Officer also stated that respondent was not got identified and no identification memo was ever prepared.

In view of this, I do not find any legal evidence to convert the acquittal into conviction. As such the findings of acquittal recorded by the learned trial Court are borne out from the evidence on record. Therefore, it calls for no interference. Hence the appeal sans merit and is accordingly dismissed. Send down the records.