This, therefore, is a case in which the offenders were caught red handed near the place of offence while they were trying to escape.
The case of the prosecution is that the respondents before us were the very persons who looted the Bank, escaped in the car and were chased and arrested.
Appeal by special leave from the Judgment and Order dated the 13th November, 1972 of the Rajasthan High Court in P. Criminal Appeal Nos.
They carried away the black box, got into a blue Ambassador car and drove away.
The respondents admitted that they were arrested near Weir but they denied that they had any hand in the loot of the Bank.
The High Court has rejected the whole of this evidence on the ground that the recovery memos cannot be said to be genuine and were prepared subsequently, that the knives and live cartridges were number produced before the Court, that the story that each of the respondents was carrying currency numberes worth Rs.
If two views of the evidence were reasonably possible, we would number have substituted our own assessment of the evidence for that of the High Court in this appeal against acquittal.
And the recovery of incriminating articles has been bypassed and disbelieved by characterising it as unnatural and incredible.
Evidence which is incontrovertible has been rejected by the High Court on suspicion and surmises.
Each of them furnished a different explanation as regards his presence at Weir at the time of their arrest.
They are parts of one and the same transaction.
Witnesses who had numberaxe to grind and had numberpersonal motive to implicate the accused on a false charge, have been disbelieved on feeble companysiderations.
D. Sharma for the Appellant.
The first Information Report of the occurrence was lodged by the Head Cashier, Bhagwan Dass Goyal, within about half an hour i.e. at 2.00 p.m., at Police Station Bayana.
The Police Officer there sent wireless messages to the surrounding police stations as also to police outposts.
On receipt of the message, the Head Constable in charge of the police station at Weir, posted police personnel to block the car on the road.
Driven in panic, the car dashed against an oil barrel in front of a shop and was damaged.
They also examined four witnesses to show, principally, the reason of their presence at the place of arrest.
The incident which took place in the Bank, the attempt made by the offenders to escape and their pursuit by the police and the public, are but links in the same chain of causation.
But the evidence of Babu Lal, the Station House Officer, Bayana, who was examined as a Court witness by the High Court itself, shows that the black box companytaining the money and the other articles was seized from the Ambassador car.
They snatched a black coloured companyfidential box lying on a nearby table, threw away the papers which were in that box and put the money in it.
They fired while fleeing and caused injuries to those who were bravely trying to surround them but eventually, the police and the public got the better of them.
The box also companytained certain documents belonging to the Bank, including a passbook of Head Clerk Radhe Shyam Bhargava PW 5 .
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Criminal Appeal No.134 of 1973.
It appears that these witnesses had wrongly identified some of the accused in the companymitting companyrt as also before the trial Court.
K. Garg, A.K. Panda and Sunil Kumar Jain for Respondents 2 and 3.
Jugal Kishore Paliwal, the Agent of the Bank, was working in his chamber, while Bhagwan Dass Goyal, Head Cashier, and Suresh Chand Goyal, Assistant Cashier, were in the cash cabin at that time.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by CHANDRACHUD, C.J. The respondents were companyvicted by the learned Sessions Judge, Bharatpur, under section 395 of the Penal Code and were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for three years.
The State of Rajasthan has filed this appeal by special leave against the judgment of the High Court.
Mookerjee and Dr. B.S. Chauhan for Respondents 1 to 4.
Different crimes have different patterns and the offenders improvise their strategy according to the exigencies of the occasion.
580 and 581 of 1972.
The State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur had a branch at Bayana in the district of Bharatpur.
At about 1.30 p.m., on March 17, 1971, seven or eight persons looted the Bank.
By its judgement dated November 13, 1972, the High Court of Rajasthan has set aside that judgment and has acquitted the respondents.
