Can't discard case in absence of independent witnesses: Court

A case of the prosecution cannot be discarded if people are not willing to become witnesses, a Delhi court has said while refusing to set aside the jail term awarded to a man for snatching a woman's mobile phone.
Additional Sessions Judge S K Sharma, while dismissing the appeal of the convict against a six month jail term given to him for the offence under section 379 (theft) of the IPC, said the trial court had already taken a lenient view regarding the quantum of sentence.
"Inmyview,theTrialCourthas alsotakenverylenient viewagainsttheappellantregarding the quantum of sentence
and therefore, the order on sentencedoesnotrequireany interferencebythiscourtand thesameisupheld," the judge said.

Rejecting the contention of the convict that the rickshaw puller in whose vehicle the victim was going home when the incident took place, was not examined during trial, the court said it was not fatal to the prosecution case.
"Sofarasjoiningtherickshawpullerininvestigation and examininghimintheCourtisconcerned,itisnotfatal tothe prosecutioncaseforthereasonthatindependent witnesses arenotagreeingtobecomewitness.Thiscannotbea groundtodiscardtheprosecutioncase," it said.

According to the prosecution, the woman had boarded a rickshaw at New Ashok Nagar metro station on February 14, 2013 to go home when convict RaviKumar suddenly snatched her mobile phone from her hand.
A trial court had in October 2017 held him guilty and sentenced him to six months imprisonment.

In his appeal challenging the order, Kumar had contended that the woman's testimony was unreliable and no independent witness was examined during trial.