A Delhi court has acquitted a youth accused of fleeing with his answer sheet of Class X board exam, saying it remained unexplained as to what benefit he would have got by running away with the answer paper.
"It remains unexplained as to what benefit would a candidate taking examination get by running away with the answer sheet. It is nobody's case that the present respondent was a poor student or that he could not attempt the questions sufficiently enough to pass the examination," Additional Sessions Judge Girish Kathpalia said.
Dismissing the appeal filed by the state against a trial court order acquitting New Delhi resident Ashok Kumar of the charges of theft and criminal breach of trust under IPC, the court said prosecution failed to prove its case.
According to the prosecution, Kumar was appearing for his Class X board exam on July 20, 2009 at Sarvodaya Kanya Vidayalaya here and at 1.30 PM when the invigilator started collecting answer sheets back, he fled away with it.
A complaint was lodged by the school principal against the student who was later apprehended. Kumar had contended that the school had misplaced his answer sheet and in order to save their skin, the authorities have lodged a false complaint against him.
Noting that there was delay of over two hours in lodging FIR against Kumar after he fled with the answer sheet from the examination centre, the court said, "No explanation has been given for the delay." "The accused fled away with the answer sheet at 1.30 PM but the FIR was lodged at 3.55 PM and there is no explanation for this delay, especially in view of the fact that even as per FIR, the distance between the police station and school where the incident allegedly occurred was hardly 0.8 km," the court said.
The court also held that answer sheet was a crucial piece of evidence to prove the dishonest intention but the police failed to recover it. "Recovery of the answer sheet with which the accused allegedly fled away was a crucial piece of evidence...but the same was not recovered during investigation. Prosecution failed to explain the failure to recover the answer sheet in question," it said.
The court also wondered why the police was not informed immediately when he ran away from the school and how could he escape with the answer sheet with so many school officials present at the centre, saying, "this raises reasonable doubts about truthfulness of prosecution case."
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