1. This appeal is directed against the judgment dated 27-4-1994 passed by the Designated Court, Ludhiana in Sessions Case No. 93 of 10-2-1993. By the aforesaid judgment, the appellant Beant Singh has been convicted under Section 5 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (hereinafter referred to as TADA). The appellant has been sentenced to suffer imprisonment for five years and to pay a fine of Rs 500, in default of such payment, a further imprisonment for one month

2. The prosecution case in short is that on 11-5-1991 the accused-appellant was apprehended by the police party headed by Head Constable Sanjhi Ram in the area near canal minor bridge Sidhwan Branch. Village Ayali Kalan. The said area is admittedly a notified area under TADA. The accused was found at the time of his apprehension in possession of a. 12 bore single barrel gun along with two live cartridges but the barrel and also the butt of the gun were cut short. The said gun was later on sent to an armourer for testing and the armourer has submitted his report by testing the said gun that though he had not actually fired the gun, the gun was in working condition. Considering the evidence adduced in the said case, the learned Designated Court came to the finding that the accused was in possession of the said arms and the ammunition and accordingly the aforesaid order of conviction and sentence under Section 5 TADA was passed by the learned Designated Court

3. At the hearing of this appeal, the learned counsel for the appellant has contended that in the instant case, the evidence against the appellant is highly unsatisfactory and on such evidence no conviction was warranted. He has submitted that it has not been established that the said gun was manufactured by any established factory. The alleged number of the gun was only mentioned in ruqa, FIR and other contemporaneous documents. But such number can be easily manipulated by inscribing the same on the barrel. Learned counsel for the appellant has further submitted that admittedly in the first information report and in the ruqa at the time of seizing the said gun, the name of the manufacturer of the gun was not mentioned. Similarly, the make of the gun was also not mentioned in the communication sent by Superintendent of Police to the District Magistrate and in the request of remand of the accused to police custody. Later on, in some of the documents, name of the manufacturer or the gun was mentioned but curiously enough, in all such documents the name of the manufacturer was mentioned only in the last line. It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that normally when the number of the gun was mentioned to indicate its identity it was only natural that the name of the manufacturer of the gun should be mentioned along with the number but such mentioning had not been done even in the documents where the name of the manufacturer was mentioned. He has submitted that in some of the later documents, in order to establish the identity of the gun, attempts were made to incorporate the name of the manufacturer only in the last line of the document. Accordingly, no reliance should be placed on the documents containing the name of the manufacturer of the gun

4. Learned counsel for the appellant has further submitted that in the instant case, there are serious discrepancies in the depositions of the witnesses examined by the prosecution. According to the prosecution case, four constables including the Head Constable who had apprehended the accused had gone to check suspects on bicycles. One of the witnesses stated that the four constables had been riding on four bicycles but the other witness stated that four constables had been riding on three bicycles because one of the constables was riding on the pillion. Learned counsel for the appellant has also submitted that one of the witnesses stated that the said police party had checked some persons in their mission of apprehending the suspects but the other witness categorically stated that excepting the accused, they had not checked any other suspect. The learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that such discrepancies only raise serious doubts about the reliability of the said witnesses and the factum of apprehension of the appellant by the police party as alleged. He has contended that it is not unlikely that the said police constables had not gone for any mission for apprehending the suspects but later on, the accused had been implicated falsely by showing some country-made gun stated to have been found in possession of the said accused when he was alleged to have been apprehended. It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that in the aforesaid facts and circumstances, no conviction should be based against the appellant and he should be acquitted by this Court. He has also submitted that the appellant though innocent had already suffered detention and imprisonment for more than three years

5. Learned counsel for the State has, however, submitted that in each and every document, the number of the gun was mentioned but maker of the gun was not mentioned in some of the documents presumably because the persons preparing such documents did not think it proper that the maker of the gun should also be mentioned in such documents. It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the State that so far as the documents wherein the maker of the gun was mentioned are concerned, learned Designated Court has come to the finding that it was not interpolated at a later stage. He has also submitted that the discrepancies as pointed out by the learned counsel for the appellant were not material for which the depositions deserve to be discarded by this Court. No personal bias of the police personnel concerned against the accused has been alleged. It is, therefore, quite unlikely that they should falsely implicate the accused with the commission of the offence6. After considering the respective submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and the facts and circumstances of this case and the deposition given in the proceedings, it appears to us that there is force in the contention of learned counsel for the appellant that the prosecution case has not been established beyond reasonable doubt. There is no convincing evidence that the gun which is alleged to have been seized was a standard gun manufactured by any established manufacturer. The name of the manufacturer was not mentioned in the first information report and in the ruqa and also in some other contemporaneous documents, but only the number of the gun was mentioned. In any country-made gun, the number can be inscribed on the barrel if one desires to do so. Mentioning of the name of the manufacturer in some of the later documents only in the last line also appears to be unusual raising doubts about the identity of the gun. The witnesses have not stated that they did not mentioned the name of the manufacturer of the gun in FIR, ruqa and some of the contemporaneous documents because they did not think that it should be mentioned. It has also not been explained why in each of the later documents only in the last line, the name of the manufacturer was mentioned. That apart, there are discrepancies in the depositions of the constables. Such discrepancies may not be otherwise very material for outright rejection of the case of apprehending the accused with a gun. But in the facts of the case, the discrepancies in the depositions of the two constables do not inspire any confidence about their creditworthiness. The facts and circumstances of the case raise doubts as to whether they actually apprehended the accused with the gun as alleged by the prosecution. In the aforesaid circumstances, we feel that the case against the accused has not been established beyond all reasonable doubts. We, therefore, set aside the conviction and acquit the appellant. The appeal is allowed accordingly.