Acquittal in a Criminal Case Panchkula District Court

It is very common, a single lacunae in a criminal case can lead to acquittal of accused. Similar thing happened here where police did not do the identification parade and then the accused were let off by the criminal courts.

Now let’s read the story.

Cops fail to do identification parade 10 accused walk free

10 followers of DERA Sacha Sauda, who were accused of attempt to murder, rioting and arson in Panchkula after the violence broke out in 2017 following conviction of Dera chief Grumeet Ram Rahim in a rape case, will now walk free. The court of district and sessions judge Sanjay Sandhir, Thursday acquitted them of all charges noting that the police never conducted an identification parade of the accused which led to make such judgement. They were basically booked by the police in the case for burning a vehicle of fire department at HAFED Chowk.

148. Rioting, armed with deadly weapon.—Whoever is guilty of rioting, being armed with a deadly weapon or with anything which, used as a weapon of offence, is likely to cause death, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
149. Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence commit­ted in prosecution of common object.—If an offence is committed by any member of an unlawful assembly in prosecution of the common object of that assembly, or such as the members of that assembly knew to be likely to be committed in prosecution of that object, every person who, at the time of the committing of that offence, is a member of the same assembly, is guilty of that offence.
150. Hiring, or conniving at hiring, of persons to join unlawful assembly.—Whoever hires or engages or employs, or promotes, or connives at the hiring, engagement or employment of any person to join or become a member of any unlawful assembly, shall be punishable as a member of such unlawful assembly, and for any offence which may be committed by any such person as a member of such unlawful assembly in pursuance of such hiring, engagement or employment, in the same manner as if he had been a member of such unlawful assembly, or himself had committed such offence.

They were booked by the police in the case registered at Sector 5 police station in August 2017 for burning a vehicle of the Fire Department at HAFED Chowk. The case was registered under various sections pertaining to rioting including 147,148,149,188,323,435,307 of the Indian Penal Code of section 3 and 4 of prevention of Damage to Public Property Act. The true identity of the accused hasn’t been revealed and that led it to become a mob. Which has set fire brigade vehicle on fire and large number of people were indulging in stone pelting, therefore the accused person cannot be identified. As per the statement given by the Shamsher Malik who was the Fire Station Officer, was not an eye witness of the incident and also no evidence was produced by the police that they were the main accused of the crime.

The final judgement made by the court was that the prosecution was not able to establish its case against accused persons beyond reasonable doubt, the point of determination is answered accordingly. The accused persons are acquitted of the charges framed against them said by the court. Therefore, the accused person who were Bhagwant Singh, Devi Dayal, Jagjeet Singh, nazir Singh, Kastoori Lal, Jagtar Singh, Amrit Pal, Madhur Hans, Dalbir Singh and Gurinder Singh are released form the custody due to the failure from the police side.

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