New Delhi [India], March 3 (ANI): Saket Court recently acquitted a man accused of carrying a country-made pistol in the Delhi Metro. Police caught him at the AIIMS metro station while checking his luggage by X-Ray Machine on January 20, 2018.

The court acquitted the accused Sanjeev Kumar Sharma giving him the benefit of doubt. The court cast serious doubt on the manner of investigation done in the matter. It pointed out there was no public witness of the incident, despite the place of the incident being a metro station.

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Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate T Priyadarshini said, "The prosecution has miserably failed to establish that the accused was in possession of the prohibited weapon andammunition as none of the witnesses has been able to link the ownership of the bag to the accused.

Further. all the witnesses involved in the arrest of the accused and seizure of weapon two live cartridges and one country-made pistol are police officials, the court added.

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"No public witness has been examined by the prosecution. No independent witness has been joined at the time of the arrest of the accused and recovery of the cartridges. The witness to the recovery being police officials, such recovery does not inspire confidence," the court said in the judgement passed on February 28.

All the witnesses examined are police witnesses. This casts doubt about the sincere efforts made by the IO to join independent witnesses, the court pointed out. The chances of false implication cannot be ruled out.

The instant case was registered on the complaint of SI Triyangam Kumar, a CISF official, who was AIIMS Metro Station Shift-in-Charge on January 20, 2018.

On that day at about 01:09 PM, the accused came with his two bags, which he put inside the X-Ray Machine for checking.

During the course of checking, one country-made pistol with two live rounds, through the X-Ray Machine was detected, the police said.

The court noted that the official who detected the weapon during checking did not recognise the accused in the court.

The court said that In the factual matrix, the key official who detected the presence of the prohibited arms and ammunition inside the bag of the accused and was the first person in the above-mentioned chain of events to have apprehended the accused was Devender Kumar.

Therefore, it is needless to state that his testimony is of paramount importance. However, he did not identify the accused who was present in court, the court said.

On being cross-examined by the Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) for the State on the aspect of identification of the accused, he stated that he cannot identify the accused due to a lapse of four years, the judge said.

Further, it is pertinent to note that the sketch memo and the seizure memo regarding the cartridges bear the number of FIR, the court noted.

The Court pointed out at the prosecution has not offered any explanation whatsoever as to under what circumstances a number of FIR has appeared on the top of the aforesaid documents, which were allegedly prepared on the spot before the registration of the FIR.

This gives rise to two inferences that either the FIR was recorded prior to the alleged recovery of the prohibited arms and ammunition or the number of the said FIR was inserted in these documents after its registration, it added

In both situations, it seriously reflects upon the veracity of the prosecution version given by the aforesaid witnesses and creates a good deal of doubt about the recovery in the manner alleged by the prosecution, the court observed in the judgement. (ANI)

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