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TMI Blog1982 (12) TMI 227X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ajasthan has set aside that judgment and has acquitted the respondents. The State of Rajasthan has filed this appeal by special leave against the judgment of the High Court. 2. 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. 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 decoits, who were armed with country-made pistols, knives and a hand-grenade, ordered these Bank employees to stand up and raise their hands. Three dacoits entered the Agent's room, beat him up and o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... me members of the public. Ultimately, they were over-powered and caught. Babu Lal, Station House Officer of the Bayana Police Station, arrived on the scene and arrested the respondents. It transpired during the investigation that the Ambassador car which the respondents had used was stolen from New Delhi a day before the occurrence. 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. 4. The respondents admitted that they were arrested near Weir but they denied that they had any hand in the loot of the Bank. Each of them furnished a different explanation as regards his presence at Weir at the time of their arrest. They also examined four ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he case of the prosecution is that each of the respondents was carrying a bundle of hundred currency notes of Rs. 10 each. It is further alleged that the black box lying in the Ambassador car was found to contain currency notes of the value of Rs. 6,800 belonging to the Bank. In addition, live cartridges and knives are also alleged to have been recovered from the possession of some of the respondents. 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 not produced before the Court, that the story that each of the respondents was carrying currency notes worth Rs. 1000, while running away is unnatur ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s and the offenders improvise their strategy according to the exigencies of the occasion. The High Court has rejected the prosecution story as not fitting in with the common course of events on the supposition and insistence that a crime of the present nature had to conform to a pattern of the kind which the High Court harboured in its mind. 10. On the first question, that is to say the question of identification, the High Court gave an exaggerated importance to the infirmities attaching to the ability of the witnesses to identify the respondents. It was overlooked, and when an argument in that behalf was made it was rejected, that the respondents were arrested red-handed and, in a manner of speaking, on the spot. There was no dispute th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... one and the same transaction. This, therefore, is a case in which the offenders were caught red-handed near the place of offence while they were trying to escape. 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. No further question survives but, since the High Court has given great importance to some other aspects of the case, we must advert to them. 11. Equally significant is the circumstance that an office box (Article 3) containing Rs. 6,800 was seized from the Ambassador car from which the respondents came out after the accident. The Memo of Seizure is at Exhibit P-22. The bundles of currency notes found in the box bore chi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... save to abandon it in the car in which they were travelling, when the car met with an accident and they were surrounded by the police and the public. What is natural by the test of common experience is that a biggish article containing the loot would be left by the thieves where it lies. They would not take it with them, while running away in order to escape from the clutches of the people who were chasing them. 12. The High Court has dwelt copiously on the question as to whether the number of the Ambassador car was disclosed in the first Information Report. The number of the car may or may not have been mentioned to the police by Goyal who gave the F.I.R. But we consider that to be a petty matter in the midst of a large mass of good evi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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