This petition is by the State directed against the order dated 10.11.1998 passed by the High Court by which the charges framed against the respondent were quashed. The relevant and necessary facts to dispose of this petition are: The respondent was working as a Road Transport Inspector in the Regional Office of the Road Transport Corporation, Bhopal and is a public servant as such. A complaint for the check period 25.9.1982 to 27.3.1993 was filed stating that he had acquired the property in excess of the known source of his income. During the investigation properties and assets belonging to his mother-in- law, father, brother and nephew were shown as assets of the respondent. The assets of his wife, who is an income-tax payer and a self earning member, were also connected with the assets of the respondent. While submitting charge sheet several important documents, which were collected during the course of investigation, were withheld. According to the respondent the said documents supported him. If those documents were considered even prima facie there was no scope to frame charges against him. At the time of framing charges the respondent made an application seeking production of these documents in court before proceeding to frame charge. But the said application was rejected stating that for the purpose of framing charges only the documents forwarded to the court need to be considered. Hence he filed Criminal Revision in the High court. The said Revision Petition was disposed of by the order dated 8.9.1997 in the following terms: - "In the result the revision is allowed, the order impugned is set-aside and it is directed that the documents made available by the accused during investigation be produced and may be taken into consideration by the court below while framing the charge." Thereafter the trial court framed charges. Aggrieved by the order dated 4.4.1988 framing charges in the Special Case No. 26/96 by the Special Judge, the respondent filed Criminal Revision. The High Court by order dated 10.11.1998 accepted the case of the respondent, set aside the order of the learned Special Judge, framing charges and discharged the respondent. In these circumstances the State has come up in this petition challenging the said order of the High Court.


The appellants were tried for offences on the allegations that about four months prior to the incident, some quarrel had taken place between the deceased P1 and the appellant No. 4 P2 in relation to raising of boundary wall. On 12 April 1983 at about 7.00 P.M. the deceased accompanied by P3, had gone to P4 (PW-8) to engage some labourers for cutting crop in his field and while returning from the house of P4, when the deceased came near the L1 of appellant No. 4, he shouted to the remaining accused who were there that the deceased was their enemy and he should not be allowed to go and kill him. The appellant No. 6 P5 assaulted the deceased with the lathi on his head. When he fell down on the ground, all the appellants assaulted him. In spite of P3 intervening, the appellants did not stop assaulting. When they found that the deceased had died, the appellants dragged his body from the spot to place near L2 of appellant No. 1 P6. Thereafter, they ran away. P7 (PW-10), brother of the deceased lodged first information report. The incident was witnessed by P4 (PW-8) and P8 (PW-13). The trial court did not believe the evidence of eye-witnesses P4 (PW-8) and P8 (PW-13); found certain discrepancies in the statements of witnesses; doubted the evidence of eye-witnesses to have identified the accused in darkness; consequently, the appellants were acquitted by the trial court giving benefit of doubt. On appeal by the State, the High Court upset the order of acquittal recorded by the trial court and held the appellants guilty of the offences and sentenced all the appellants to rigorous imprisonment for one year and for imprisonment of life. Both the sentences were to run concurrently. Hence, this appeal to this Court.


In this appeal by special leave the sole appellant is P1 who alongwith six others was put up for trial before the Additional Sessions Judge in charged of the offence. It is not necessary to refer to the charges framed against the remaining accused since they are not appellants before us. The trial court by its judgment and order of April 24, 1995 found the appellant guilty of offence and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 10 years. The appellant preferred Criminal Appeal No.125 of 1995 before the High Court which was dismissed by the High Court by its impugned judgment and order of April 5, 2002. We may only observe that of the seven persons put up for trial before the learned Additional Sessions Judge one P2 was given the benefit of doubt and acquitted. One P3 was sentenced to life imprisonment and  P4 was sentenced to life imprisonment. The remaining accused were sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. The appeals preferred by the remaining accused have also been disposed of by the High Court by the impugned judgment. The case of the prosecution is that the informant Dr. D1 is a resident of L1. On January 13, 1989 at 2010 hours he lodged a first information report at police station in which he stated that on that date at about 7.30 p.m. while he was watching the television, other members of the family were in the house. His son P5, PW-1 had gone to the fields and had not returned. While he was watching the television he saw that three persons entered his house with concealed faces. Of them two were armed with pistols and they demanded the keys from him. He could identify accused P3 by his voice, stature and eyes. He then heard the cries of his daughter-in-law coming from another room and when he rushed to her room he found that two other persons were threatening her, of whom one was armed with country made pistol. His daughter-in-law handed over to them whatever ornaments she was wearing at that time. Two other persons then entered the room who picked up some articles. Those two persons had not concealed their faces. Some other dacoits also entered the room of his daughter-in-law and started making demands from her. A relative of his, namely P6, PW-4, who was residing with him, told his daughter-in-law to handover the keys to the dacoits. Thereafter the dacoits asked P6 to open the almirah but he was unable to do so. One of the dacoits threatened to kill him if he did not open the almirah. Seeing this, the informant rushed and caught that hand of the dacoit in which he was holding the pistol and pushed him towards the verandah. Thereafter the informant's daughter, P7 started raising alarm. Some of the dacoits were in the courtyard of the house and he recognized one of them as Rajesh Yadav who was armed with a pistol. Rajesh Yadav exhorted Parshuram to fire and thereafter Parshuram fired hitting his daughter P7. The dacoits also exploded bombs. The informant claimed to have recognized one of the miscreants as P2 who assaulted him on his back with the barrel of his pistol as a result of which his grip over one of the dacoits, whom he had caught, loosened and that dacoit slipped away. Thereafter the dacoits fled away. His daughter P7 succumbed to her injuries. By this time his son P5, PW-1 had also come. He mentioned in his report that P20, P6, PW-4 and P30, PW-2 were also injured. In the report he also gave descriptions of other dacoits whom he had not recognized.


Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment of the High Court upholding the conviction of the appellant for offences punishable and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life and also to pay a fine of Rs.1,000/- with default stipulations, as recorded by the Principal Sessions Judge.  The prosecution version, in a nutshell, is as follows. PW-1 is the wife of PW-4. The accused and PW-4 are the sons of P1 (hereinafter referred to as the 'deceased'). PW-2 is the son of PW-1. P1 had certain immovable properties which he partitioned 10 years before the occurrence, and he regained a piece of land namely 10 cents, which is a poramboke, for his livelihood. The accused was insisting him to give that land also. There arose a civil dispute between them. It also ended in favour of P1. On the day of occurrence i.e, 26.05.2003 at about 7.00 A.M., PW-1 was going to the garden to pluck vegetables. At that time, her father-in-law, the said P1, was cutting trees. He was having a spade and aruval in hand. At that time, the accused came there and questioned how he could cut the trees, and following the same, there was a wordy duel. Immediately, the accused snatched the aruval and cut him on the neck and shoulder indiscriminately. PW-1 on seeing this, raised alarm, and immediately, the accused fled away from the place of occurrence. The said P1 met his instantaneous death. PW-1 proceeded to the Police Station, where, the sub- Inspector of Police (PW-11), was present. PW-1 gave a report (Ex.P1), on the strength of which a case came to be registered. The first information report, Ex.P-12, along with Ex.P1 was despatched to the Magistrates' Court. The Inspector of Police (PW-12), on receipt of the copy of the FIR, took up investigation, proceeded to the spot, made an inspection in the presence of witnesses and prepared an observation mahazar, Ex.P-4, and a rough sketch, Ex.P-13. Then, he conducted inquest on the dead body of P1 in the presence of witnesses and panchayatdars and prepared an inquest report, Ex.P-14. The dead body was sent to the Government Hospital along with a requisition, Ex.P-2, for the purpose of autopsy. The Assistant Surgeon (PW-6), attached to the Government Hospital, on receipt of the said requisition, conducted autopsy on the dead body of P1 and found 7 cut injuries. The doctor gave a post- mortem certificate, Ex.P-3, with her opinion that the deceased would appear to have died of hemorrhage and shock due to injuries to major vessels. Pending the investigation, the Investigating Officer arrested the accused on 27.05.2003. He volunteered to give a confessional statement, which was recorded by the Investigator. The admissible part of the confession was marked as Ex. P-6, pursuant to which he produced M.O.-1, aruval and M.O.-4, Shirt, which have been recovered under a mahazar, Ex.P-7. The accused was sent for judicial remand. All the material objects recovered from the place of occurrence and from the dead body and M.Os. l and 4, recovered from the accused, were subjected to chemical analysis by the Forensic Sciences Department, which resulted in two reports namely Ex.P-10, the Chemical Analyst's report and Ex.P-11, the Serologist's report. On completion of investigation, the Investigator filed the final report. Charges were framed. The accused pleaded innocence. Twelve witnesses were examined to further the prosecution version. The accused, in his examination submitted that he has been falsely implicated and in any event, there was a wordy duel before the occurrence in which the appellant had purportedly snatched the weapon from the hands of the deceased and, therefore, a statute has no application. The Trial Court did not accept the plea and placing reliance on the evidence of the eye-witnesses, PWs-l and 2, recorded the conviction and sentence, as noted above. The plea taken before the Trial Court was reiterated by the accused persons before the High Court. By the impugned judgment, the High Court did not find any substance in the plea and dismissed the appeal.


Appellant was a Patwari working at village V1 in the year 1976. On an allegation that he had sought illegal gratification, on or about 13 July 1976, a complaint was lodged in the office of Deputy Superintendent of Police, Anti-Corruption that the appellant had asked for illegal gratification. A raiding party laid a trap on the said date and he was found to have accepted illegal gratification. Pursuant thereto he was prosecuted for alleged commission of an offence. He was placed under suspension. He was convicted by reason of a judgment dated 25 February 1985 passed by the Special Judge (A.C.D.). He was dismissed from service in terms of the said judgment of conviction by an order dated 3 October 1987 2. The appellant preferred an appeal against the said judgment of conviction and sentence and by reason of a judgment and order dated 16 January 2001, the said appeal was allowed. The appellant, thus, stood acquitted. In the meanwhile, i.e., in the year 1998, the appellant reached his age of superannuation. Having been acquitted in the criminal proceeding, he filed a writ petition before the High Court which. By an order dated 19 February 2003, a learned Single Judge of the High Court directed that in the event the appellant files a representation before the competent officer with regard to pension, the same may be considered within a period of three months therefrom. An appeal preferred there against was dismissed by reason of the impugned order passed by the Division Bench.


A peculiar feature of this appeal by special leave is that it is not an appeal against conviction or against acquittal but one preferred by a prosecution witness for expunction of several highly derogatory remarks made against him by a learned Judge of the High Court while allowing a Criminal Appeal at the High Court. P1, the appellant before us was examined as P.W. 8 in the trial of a case on the file of the Special Judge (Vigilance) against the first respondent. The trial ended in conviction against the first respondent and when the appeal filed by him came to be heard by the High Court the appellant had become a Cabinet Minister in the State. On account of the disparaging remarks made by the Appellate Judge the appellant tendered his resignation and demitted office for maintaining democratic traditions. It is in that backgroud this appeal has come to be preferred. Pursuant to a trap laid by the Vigilance Police on the complaint of the appellant's Manager, P2 (P.W.2) the first respondent was arrested on 26.4.79 for having accepted a bribe of Rs. 2,000 from P2. The marked currency notes M.Os. V to XXVI were recovered from the brief case M.O. II of the first respondent prior to the arrest. The prosecution case was that the first respondent had been extracting illegal gratification at the rate of Rs. 1,000 er month during the months of January, February and March, 1979 from P2 but all of a sudden he raised the demand to Rs. 2,000 per month in April 1979 and this led to P2 laying information (Exhibit I) before the Superintendent of Police (Vigilance). Acting on the report, a trap was laid on 26.4.79 and after P2 had handed over the marked currency notes the Vigilance party entered the office and recovered the currency notes from the brief case and arrested the first respondent. The first respondent denied having received any illegal gratification but offered no explanation for the presence of the currency notes in his brief case. Eleven witnesses including the appellant who figured as P.W.8 were examined by the prosecution and the first respondent examined three witnesses D.Ws. 1 to 3 to substantiate the defence set up by him, viz., that the sum of Rs. 2,000 had been paid by way of donation for conducting a drama and publishing a souvenir by the Mining Officers' Club and also towards donation for Children's Welfare Fund. The Special Judge accepted the prosecution case and held the first respondent guilty. The Special Judge awarded a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for one year for the conviction under the first charge but did not award any separate sentence for the second  conviction. Against the conviction and sentence the first respondent preferred Criminal Appeal No. 31 of 1982 to the High Court. A learned Judge of the High Court has allowed the appeal holding that the prosecution has not proved its case by acceptable evidence and besides, the first respondent's explanation for the possession of the currency notes appeared probable. While acquitting the first respondent the learned Judge has, however, made several adverse remarks about the conduct of the appellant and about the credibility of his testimony and it is with that part of the judgment we are now concerned with in this appeal.