Skip to content


State of U.P. Vs. Gopi and ors. - Court Judgment

SooperKanoon Citation

Subject

Criminal

Court

Supreme Court of India

Decided On

Judge

Reported in

1979CriLJ1121; 1960Supp(1)SCC160; 1979(11)LC437(SC)

Acts

Indian Penal Code (IPC) - Sections 34, 201 and 302

Appellant

State of U.P.

Respondent

Gopi and ors.

Excerpt:


.....that the pur- chases by the local agent of foreign buyers were with a view to export the goods to their principals abroad and that the goods were in fact exported out of india. it was contended on behalf of the appellants that the sales of tea were "in the course of export out of the territory of india", and thus exempt from taxation under art. 286(1)(b) ,of the constitution. held: (per gajendragadkar, c. j., shah and sikri, jj.) (i) a transaction of sale which occasions export, or which is effected by a transfer of documents of title after the goods have crossed the customs frontiers, is exempt under art. 286(1)(b) of the constitution from sales tax levied under any state legislation. a transaction of sale which is a preliminary to export of the commodity sold may be regarded as a sale for export, but is not necessarily to be regarded as one in the course of export, unless the sale occasions export. etymological the expression "in the course of export", contemplates an integral relation or bond between the sale and the export. in general where a sale is effected by the seller, and the seller is not connected with the export which actually takes place, it is a sale for export...........labour. is was the definite case of the prosecution that nanhay singh and the deceased had gone on their respective bicycles and yet inspite of the fact that the investigating officer reached the place of occurrence he found only one bicycle which was taken by the deceased and there was no trace of a second bicycle. apart from this it was stated in the fir and also in the evidence that pws 4 and 6 were attracted to the spot by she alarm raised by nanhey singh after the deceased was attacked. the high court thought that if nanhay singh's presence at the spot was doubtful there could be no occasion at all for pws 4 and 6 to visit the place of occurrence and witness the assault on the deceased. there may be something to be said for this view of the high court and, if we were sitting as a court of appeal, we may have taken a different view and may have accepted the statement of pw 4 and 6. but that is no reason to set aside the judgment of the high court for after consideration of the various aspects of the case it cannot be said that the view taken by the high court was not reasonably possible. once this is so, this court in special leave would not interfere with the order of.....

Judgment:


S. Murtaza Fazal Ali, J.

1. This appeal by special leave is directed against a judgment of the Allahabad High Court dated 13-10- 1972 acquitting the respondents of the charge under Section 302/34 and Section 201 IPC.We have gone through the judgment of the Sessions Judge and that of the High Court. The High Court has given cogent reasons for disbelieving the prosecution case and has entertained a good deal of suspicion on the honesty of the police investigation in the present case. In view of the tainted investigation, the High Court has scrutinized the evidence with very great care and found that all the eye-witnesses were interested excepting PW 4 and 6 and some of the eye-witnesses were completely under the control of the police and it was therefore unsafe to convict the accused.

2. Appearing in support of the appeal, Mr. Uniyal submitted that so far as PVV4 Babu Ram & PW 6 Shiv Ram Singh, are concerned, they were independent witnesses and bore no animus against the respondents. There was thus no reason why their evidence should not be accepted. The High Court has, however, found that the occasion for the presence of these witnesses was that they were attracted to the scene of occurrence by the alarm raised by PW Nanhay Singh. Nanhay Singh however has been disbelieved by the High Court firstly on the ground that it was improbable for him to accompany the deceased who was going to the village merely for the purpose of hiring labour. Is was the definite case of the prosecution that Nanhay Singh and the deceased had gone on their respective bicycles and yet inspite of the fact that the investigating officer reached the place of occurrence he found only one bicycle which was taken by the deceased and there was no trace of a second bicycle. Apart from this it was stated in the FIR and also in the evidence that PWs 4 and 6 were attracted to the spot by she alarm raised by Nanhey Singh after the deceased was attacked. The High Court thought that if Nanhay Singh's presence at the spot was doubtful there could be no occasion at all for PWs 4 and 6 to visit the place of occurrence and witness the assault on the deceased. There may be something to be said for this view of the High Court and, if we were sitting as a Court of appeal, we may have taken a different view and may have accepted the statement of PW 4 and 6. But that is no reason to set aside the judgment of the High Court for after consideration of the various aspects of the case it cannot be said that the view taken by the High Court was not reasonably possible. Once this is so, this Court in special leave would not interfere with the order of acquittal. For these reasons, therefore, the appeal is dismissed.




Save Judgments// Add Notes // Store Search Result sets // Organize Client Files //