Accused acquitted as witnesses fail to appear in court for 8 years in UP

Etah: In a glaring example of police carelessness, an accused under Arms Act was acquitted in a case due to non-appearance of prosecution witnesses for eight years despite warrants asking them to do so.

According to details, police arrested a man named Sandeep Kumar of village Targava in Kotwali Jaithera on June 20, 2004 and recovered .315 bore country-made pistol along with cartridges from his possession.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) has mentioned in his order that in the case under Arms Act, the policemen including a sub-inspector did not appear in court even when non-bailable warrants were issued against them and notices under Section 350 were also issued on the dates fixed by the court to provide evidence for the past eight years.

The accused was acquitted for want of evidence against him on Wednesday.

CJM Chhotey Lal Yadav has mentioned in the order that letters to SSP Etah were also sent by the court for getting the police witnesses to appear including non-bailable warrants against the prosecution witnesses but no attention was paid in this regard.

Non-bailable warrants and notice under Section 350 against police witnesses including sub-inspector police to appear before the court the CJM said.