01.01.2026 vs Of on 23 February, 2026

Himachal Pradesh High Court

Reserved On: 01.01.2026 vs Of on 23 February, 2026

                                                                                    2026:HHC:3553




     IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA

                                              Cr. Appeal No. 4163 of 2013




                                                                                   .
                                              Reserved on: 01.01.2026





                                              Date of Decision: 23.02.2026.





    State of HP                                                                   ...Appellant

                                          Versus




                                                     of
    Saroop Kumar                                                                 ...Respondent


    Coram
                           rt
    Hon'ble Mr Justice Rakesh Kainthla, Judge.

    Whether approved for reporting?1 No

    For the Appellant                 :         Mr. Lokender Kutlehria, Additional


                                                Advocate General.
    For the Respondent                :         Ms Sangeeta Vasudeva, Advocate.




    Rakesh Kainthla, Judge

The present appeal is directed against the judgment

dated 29.05.2013, passed by learned Judicial Magistrate 2 nd Class,

Dharamshala, District Kangra, H.P. (learned Trial Court), vide

which the respondent (accused before the learned Trial Court)

was acquitted of the commission of offences punishable under

Sections 451 and 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). (Parties shall

1
Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes.

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hereinafter be referred to in the same manner as they were arrayed

before the learned Trial Court for convenience.)

.

2. Briefly stated, the facts giving rise to the present

appeal are that the police presented a challan before the learned

Trial Court for the commission of offences punishable under

of
Sections 451, 354 and 323 of the IPC. It was asserted that the

informant/victim (name withheld to protect her identity) was
rt
present in her home on 15.07.2010 with her children. The

accused entered her house at about 12 noon and molested her.

She protested and accused gave her beatings. She shouted for

help, and she was rescued by the passersby. She filed a

complaint (Ext.PW1/A) before the police, and the police

registered the FIR (Ext.PW4/A). Rajinder Kumar (PW9)

investigated the matter. He visited the spot and prepared the site

plan (Ext.PW9/A). The victim produced a shirt (Ext.P1) worn by

her at the time of the incident, which was seized vide memo

(Ext.PW1/B). The shirt was put in a cloth parcel, and the parcel

was sealed with four impressions of seal ‘P’. Specimen seal

impression (Ext.PW9/B) was taken on a separate piece of cloth,

and the seal was handed over to Vinod Kumar after use. The

statements of witnesses were recorded as per their version. The

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challan was prepared and presented before the learned Trial

Court after the completion of the investigation.

.

3. The learned Trial Court charged the accused with the

commission of offences punishable under Sections 451 and 354

of the IPC, to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed to be

of
tried.

4. The prosecution examined nine witnesses to prove
rt
its case. Complainant/victim (PW1), her daughter (PW2), and

her husband (PW6) narrated the incident. The victim’s son

(PW3) was not found to be a competent witness by the learned

Trial Court. ASI Kishori Lal (PW4) signed the FIR. Promila (PW5)

proved the entry in the daily diary. Rustam Kumar (PW7) and

Vinod Kumar (PW8) did not support the prosecution’s case.

Rajinder Kumar (PW9) investigated the matter.

5. The accused, in his statement recorded under Section

313 of Cr.P.C., denied the prosecution’s case in its entirety. He

claimed that a false case was made against him. He did not

produce any evidence in his defence.

6. Learned Trial Court held that the victim had

materially improved upon her initial version. There was a delay

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in reporting the matter to the police, which was not

satisfactorily explained. The defence taken, during the cross-

.

examination of the witnesses, that a false case was made

because of non-payment of money, was highly probable. Two

witnesses did not support the prosecution’s case, which also

made the prosecution’s case doubtful. The prosecution had

of
failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt; hence, the

accused was acquitted.

rt

7. Being aggrieved by the judgment passed by the

learned Trial Court, the State has filed the present appeal

asserting that the learned Trial Court erred in acquitting the

accused. The testimonies of the witnesses were discarded

without any cogent reasons. The testimony of the victim, her

son and husband corroborated each other on material aspects.

The independent witnesses were declared hostile, and their

testimonies should not have been used to discard the

prosecution’s case. Minor contradictions were bound to come

with time and should not have been used to discard the

prosecution’s case. Hence, it was prayed that the present appeal

be allowed and the judgment passed by the learned Trial Court

be set aside.

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8. I have heard Mr Lokender Kutlehria, learned

Additional Advocate General for the appellant/State and Ms

.

Sangeeta Vasudeva, learned counsel for the respondent/accused.

9. Mr Lokender Kutlehria, learned Additional Advocate

General for the appellant/State, submitted that the learned Trial

of
Court erred in acquitting the accused. The statement of the

victim was duly corroborated by the testimonies of her daughter
rt
and her husband. Learned Trial Court discarded the statements

of the prosecution witnesses because of minor discrepancies

that were bound to come with time. Learned Trial Court had

taken a view which could not have been taken by any reasonable

person. Therefore, he prayed that the present appeal be allowed

and the judgment passed by the learned Trial Court be set aside.

10. Ms Sangeeta Vasudeva, learned counsel for the

respondent/accused, submitted that the matter was reported to

the police after a delay, which was not properly explained and

the learned Trial Court was justified in doubting the

prosecution’s case because of a delay. Two independent

witnesses did not support the prosecution’s case. The victim

materially improved upon her initial version, which made her

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testimony suspect. Learned Trial Court had taken a reasonable

view in the matter, and this Court should not interfere with it.

.

Therefore, she prayed that the present appeal be dismissed.

11. I have given considerable thought to the submissions

made at the bar and have gone through the records carefully.

of

12. The present appeal has been filed against a judgment

of acquittal. It was laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in
rt
Surendra Singh v. State of Uttarakhand, (2025) 5 SCC 433: 2025 SCC

OnLine SC 176 that the Court can interfere with a judgment of

acquittal if it is patently perverse, is based on misreading of

evidence, omission to consider the material evidence and no

reasonable person could have recorded the acquittal based on

the evidence led before the learned Trial Court. It was observed

at page 438:

“24. It could thus be seen that it is a settled legal position
that the interference with the finding of acquittal recorded
by the learned trial Judge would be warranted by the High
Court only if the judgment of acquittal suffers from patent
perversity; that the same is based on a misreading/omission
to consider material evidence on record; and that no two
reasonable views are possible and only the view consistent
with the guilt of the accused is possible from the evidence
available on record.”

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13. This position was reiterated in State of M.P. v.

Ramveer Singh, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1743, wherein it was

.

observed:

“21. We may note that the present appeal is one against

acquittal. Law is well-settled by a plethora of judgments
of this Court that, in an appeal against acquittal, unless
the finding of acquittal is perverse on the face of the

of
record and the only possible view based on the evidence is
consistent with the guilt of the accused, only in such an
event, should the appellate Court interfere with a
judgment of acquittal. Where two views are possible, i.e.,
rt
one consistent with the acquittal and the other holding
the accused guilty, the appellate Court should refuse to

interfere with the judgment of acquittal. Reference in this
regard may be made to the judgments of this Court in the
cases of Babu Sahebagouda Rudragoudarv. State of
Karnataka (2024) 8 SCC 149; H.D. Sundara v. State of

Karnataka (2023) 9 SCC 581, and Rajesh Prasad v. State of
Bihar (2022) 3 SCC 471.”

14. The present appeal has to be decided as per the

parameters laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

15. The incident occurred at 12 noon, and the matter was

reported to the police at 4:05 PM. The distance between the

place of incident and the Police Station is shown to be 6 kms in

the FIR (Ext.PW4/A). The victim (PW1) stated in her cross-

examination that she had reached the Police Station at 12:15 PM

and remained at the police station for about 30-45 minutes.

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Therefore, as per the victim, the incident was reported to the

police within 15 minutes of the incident.

.

16. Her testimony is not supported by the record.

Promila (PW5) stated that the victim filed an application on

15.07.2010. An entry No. 23A was registered on her complaint.

of
This entry was recorded at 1605 hours. Thus, the matter was

reported to the police at 4:05 PM and not 12:15 PM. Therefore,
rt
the learned Trial Court had rightly held that the victim had not

explained the delay in reporting the matter to the police. It was

laid down in Mehraj Singh v. State of U.P. (1994) 5 SCC 188 that the

delay in lodging FIR leads to embellishments, concoction and

fabrication and the court should see the prosecution case with

utmost care and caution in case of delay. It was observed:

“FIR in a criminal case and particularly in a murder case
is a vital and valuable piece of evidence to appreciate the

evidence led at the trial. The object of insisting upon
prompt lodging of the FIR is to obtain the earliest
information regarding the circumstances in which the
crime was committed, including the names of the actual
culprits and the parts played by them, the weapons, if
any, used, as also the names of the eyewitnesses, if any.
Delay in lodging the FIR often results in embellishment,
which is a creature of an afterthought. On account of the
delay, the FIR not only gets bereft of the advantage of
spontaneity, but danger also creeps in with the
introduction of a coloured version or exaggerated story.
With a view to determining whether the FIR was lodged at

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the time it is alleged to have been recorded, the courts
generally look for certain external checks. One of the
checks is the receipt of a copy of the FIR, called a special

.

report in a murder case, by the local Magistrate. If this

report is received by the Magistrate late, it can give rise to
an inference that the FIR was not lodged at the time it is
alleged to have been recorded, unless, of course, the

prosecution can offer a satisfactory explanation for the
delay in dispatching or receipt of the copy of the FIR by
the local Magistrate. The prosecution has presented no

of
evidence at all in this case. The second external check,
equally important, is the sending of a copy of the FIR
along with the dead body and its reference in the inquest
report. Even though the inquest, prepared under Section
rt
174 CrPC, is aimed at serving a statutory function, to lend
credence to the prosecution’s case, the details of the FIR

and the gist of statements recorded during inquest
proceedings get reflected in the report. The absence of
those details is indicative of the fact that the
prosecution’s story was still in an embryonic state and

had not been given any shape, and that the FIR came to be
recorded later on, after due deliberations and
consultations and was then ante-timed to give it the

colour of a promptly lodged FIR. In our opinion, on
account of the infirmities as noticed above, the FIR has

lost its value and authenticity, and it appears to us that
the same has been ante-dated and had not been recorded
till the inquest proceedings were over at the spot by PW

8.”

17. This position was reiterated in P Rajagopal vs State of

Tamil Nadu 2019 (5) SCC 40, wherein it was observed: –

“12. Normally, the Court may reject the case of the
prosecution in case of inordinate delay in lodging the first
information report because of the possibility of a
concoction of evidence by the prosecution. However, if
the delay is satisfactorily explained, the Court will decide

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the matter on the merits without giving much importance
to such delay. The Court is duty-bound to determine
whether the explanation afforded is plausible enough

.

given the facts and circumstances of the case. The delay

may be condoned if the complainant appears to be
reliable and without any motive for implicating the
accused falsely. [See Apren Joseph v. State of Kerala, (1973)

3 SCC 114; Mukesh v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2017) 6 SCC 1].”

18. A similar view was taken in Sekaran v. State of T.N.,

of
(2024) 2 SCC 176: (2024) 1 SCC (Cri) 548: 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1653,

wherein it was observed on page 182:

rt
“14. We start with the FIR, to which exception has been
taken by the appellant, urging that there has been no

satisfactory explanation for its belated registration. It is
trite that merely because there is some delay in lodging
an FIR, the same by itself and without anything more
ought not to weigh in the mind of the courts in all cases as

fatal for the prosecution. A realistic and pragmatic
approach has to be adopted, keeping in mind the
peculiarities of each particular case, to assess whether the

unexplained delay in lodging the FIR is an afterthought to
give a coloured version of the incident, which is sufficient

to corrode the credibility of the prosecution’s version.

15. In cases where delay occurs, it has to be tested on the

anvil of other attending circumstances. If on an overall
consideration of all relevant circumstances it appears to
the court that the delay in lodging the FIR has been
explained, mere delay cannot be sufficient to disbelieve
the prosecution case; however, if the delay is not
satisfactorily explained and it appears to the court that
cause for the delay had been necessitated to frame anyone
as an accused, there is no reason as to why the delay
should not be considered as fatal forming part of several
factors to vitiate the conviction.”

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19. Therefore, the learned Trial Court was justified in

doubting the prosecution’s case because of the delay in

.

reporting the matter to the police.

20. The victim mentioned in her complaint (Ext. PW1/A)

that she and her children were present in the house. The accused

of
molested her, taking advantage of her loneliness. She protested,

and the accused gave her beatings. She and her children shouted
rt
for help. Thus, as per the complaint (Ext.PW1/A), the incident

had taken place because the victim happened to be alone in her

house.

21. The victim stated in the Court that she was present in

her courtyard and was filling her bucket. The accused came and

asked her why she had behaved like a boss the previous night.

The accused tore her shirt and slapped her. She tried to stop the

accused, but he pressed her breast. She and the children shouted

for help. Her children also called their father. She tried to beat

the accused with the stick, and the accused ran away. She ran

after the accused. Two people stopped her on the way and told

her that her shirt was torn and she should return to her home.

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22. It is apparent from her testimony in the Court that

she had changed the initial version completely. As per the

.

complaint, she was present in her home and as per her

statement on oath, she was present in her courtyard. The

complaint does not mention that she was doing anything at the

time of the arrival of the accused. She stated on oath that she

of
was filling her bucket with tap water. She stated in her

complaint that the accused had molested her, taking advantage
rt
of her loneliness. She changed this version in the Court and

stated that the accused enquired as to why she had behaved like

a boss the previous night. She had stated in the complaint that

the accused beat her. She and her children shouted for help, and

the passerby came to her house and rescued her. She changed

her version in the Court by saying that she ran after the accused.

She was sent back by two people, telling her that her shirt was

torn. Therefore, she has changed the initial version projected by

her completely in the Court, which would make her testimony

doubtful.

23. It was laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in

State of M.P. v. Dhirendra Kumar, (1997) 1 SCC 93: 1997 SCC (Cri) 54

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that when the prosecution projects a different case during the

Trial, its case becomes suspect. It was observed:

.

“11. It was very emphatically contended by Shri
Gambhir that as in the first information report (FIR),
there is no mention of the dying declaration, we

should discard the evidence of PW 1 and PW 2
regarding the dying declaration, because of what has
been pointed out by this Court in Ram Kumar

of
Pandey v. State of M.P. [(1975) 3 SCC 815: 1975 SCC (Cri)
225: AIR 1975 SC 1026] We do not, however, agree
with Shri Gambhir, for the reason that what was
rt
observed in Ram Kumar case [(1975) 3 SCC 815: 1975
SCC (Cri) 225: AIR 1975 SC 1026] after noting the broad

facts, was that material omission in the FIR would cast
doubt on the veracity of the prosecution case, despite the
general law being that statements made in the FIR can
be used to corroborate or contradict its maker. This view

owes its origin to the thinking that if there be a material
departure in the prosecution case as unfolded in the FIR,

which would be so if material facts not mentioned in the
FIR are deposed to by prosecution witnesses in the court,

the same would cause a dent to the edifice on which the
prosecution case is built, as the substratum of the
prosecution case then gets altered. The prosecution

cannot project two entirely different versions of a case.
This is entirely different from thinking that some
omission in the FIR would require disbelieving the
witnesses who depose about the fact not mentioned
in the FIR. Evidence of witnesses has to be tested for
its strength or weakness. While doing so, if the fact
deposed be a material part of the prosecution case,
about which, however, no mention was made in the
FIR, the same would be borne in mind while deciding

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about the credibility of the evidence given by the
witness in question.”

24. Thus, the learned Trial Court was justified in

.

doubting the victim’s testimony because of the change of her

initial version.

25. Her daughter stated that the victim was teaching her

of
and her brother. The accused came inside the house. The victim

was filling the water. The accused caught hold of the victim and
rt
tore her shirt. He tried to slap her. The victim shouted. She and

her brother called their father. However, the accused ran away

from the spot.

26. The testimony of this witness does not corroborate

the victim’s testimony. According to this witness, the victim was

teaching her and her brother, which was never stated in the

complaint (Ext.CW1/A) or in the statement of the victim. She had

not stated that the accused had enquired from the victim as to

why she had behaved like a boss the previous night. She stated

that the accused caught hold of the victim from behind and tore

her shirt, which is quite contrary to the testimony of the victim.

She did not state that the accused had pressed the victim’s

breast when she tried to stop her. She also did not state that the

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victim ran after the accused, armed with a stick. Thus, her

testimony was rightly discarded by the learned Trial Court.

.

27. The victim’s husband (PW6) stated that the accused

used to quarrel with him. The accused used to create a ruckus

after consuming liquor. He (PW6) was called by his daughter. He

of
reached the spot where the victim and the children narrated the

incident to him.

28.
rt
The testimony of this witness shows that the

relationship between the accused and him is not cordial. He

specifically stated that the accused used to quarrel with him. The

accused used to create a ruckus after consuming liquor. These

admissions show that his testimony is required to be seen with

due care and caution because of the inimical relationship

between him and the accused.

29. Testimony of PW6 shows that he is not an

eyewitness, and his testimony can only be used to corroborate

the victim’s testimony. When the testimony of the victim is not

satisfactory, his testimony cannot be used to prove the

prosecution’s case.

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30. Rustam Kumar (PW7) and Vinod Kumar (PW8) have

not supported the prosecution’s case. Otherwise, they came

.

after the incident, and their testimonies cannot be used to prove

the prosecution’s case.

31. The statement of the passersby who had rescued the

of
victim from the accused, as per the complaint, or the statement

of the occupant of the vehicle who had asked the victim to go
rt
back, as her shirt was torn, were not recorded. Thus, this part of

the prosecution’s case was also not established.

32. Therefore, the learned Trial Court has taken a

reasonable view of the matter, which could have been taken

based on the evidence led before it. No interference is required

with the reasonable view of the learned Trial Court, while

deciding an appeal against acquittal, even if another view is

possible.

33. In view of the above, the present appeal fails, and it is

dismissed.

34. Keeping in view of the provisions of Section 437-A of

the Code of Criminal Procedure [Section 481 of Bharatiya

Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS)], the respondent/

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accused is directed to furnish personal bond in the sum of

₹25,000/- with one surety in the like amount to the satisfaction

.

of the learned Registrar (Judicial) of this Court/learned Trial

Court, within four weeks, which shall be effective for six months

with stipulation that in the event of Special Leave Petition being

filed against this judgment, or on grant of the leave, the

of
respondent/accused, on receipt of notice thereof, shall appear

before the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

rt

35. A copy of this judgment, along with the records of the

learned Trial Court, shall be sent back forthwith.

36. Pending miscellaneous application(s), if any, also

stand(s) disposed of.

(Rakesh Kainthla)

Judge
23rd February, 2025
(Nikita)

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