Case No. – 129/2017
DELHI DISTRICT COURT
BENCH: Hon’ble Ms. Kiran Bansal J.
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 16 January 2018
RELEVANT ACTS/SECTIONS
Section 2 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Destroying or taking any body part of any animal)
Section 9 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Prohibition for hunting)
Section 49B of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Prohibition of dealings in trophies, animal articles, etc. derived from scheduled animals)
Section 51 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (punishment for any person who contravened any provisions with an imprisonment of not less than 7 years)
Section 55 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Cognizance of offences)
Section 313 of Cr.P.C. (Power to examine the accused)
Section 360 of Cr.P.C. (Order to release on probation of good conduct or after admonition)
BACKSTORY
In this case, a complainant has filed a complaint to the CBI saying that contraband shahtoosh shawls were traded in a shop named Kargha 21 Santoshi Shopping Arcade, New Delhi and The CBI conducted a raid with an independent witness in the shop dated 28-07-1998 at 4:30 pm. Neelam Singh (inspector) entered the shop and asked to show the shawl like she wants to purchase and Sunita showed her all the 17 shawls which were present there. Then the CBI team who was outside was called by the inspector and CBI collected 17 shawls that were present inside the shop and the shawl was made up of an animal which was scheduled animal and Sunita Kumar was present in the shop while the raid was happening. The accused was not having any license or any authority for running the shop. After seizing the shawls, CBI checked the Bills of the shops dated 25-07-1998 and got information about S.S shawls from were these shawls were purchased. The owner’s name is Abdul Samad Shah (Accused no:2). FIR was filed for the same.
The shawls were sent to the wildlife institute for expert opinion and they said that 11 shawls out of 17 are the shawls that were made of Tibetan Antelope. After knowing the details, the case was handed over to the wildlife department from the CBI to file the complaint U/S 51 of the wildlife protection act 1972 against the accused. Then they were summoned and pre-charge evidence was recorded and there were 10 witnesses including V.B Dasan, Manjeet Singh, Inspector Neelam Singh, Sanjana Nayar, Sudesh Kumar, Dr. SP Goyal, M.C Joshi (Scientist), Rattan Singh, Jasbir Pal Singh, and Insp. Khalil Sarvar. Both the accused Sunita Kumar and Abdul was testified.
Subsequently, on 24-03-2014, Sunita Kumar was proved guilty and punishable under section 51 of the wildlife protection act 1972, and Abdul Shah was discharged from the case on 21-02-2014. The prosecution questioned 10 witnesses under section 313 of Cr.P.C. and Ld. Court convicted the accused of the offence under section 49B of wildlife protection act and held guilty vide order dated 17-01-2017 and they adopted a lenient view against the old age female (61 years) convict, they released her on probation on furnishing a personal bond of Rs20,000 with one surety of the like amount for six months and also imposed fine of 1.5 lakhs as cost of proceedings of the court. Then the convict was released, but at last, it has been said that the release of the convict on probation is illegal as the section 51(5) of WLP act (probation of offender’s act is given only to the convict under the age of 18 years.
JUDGEMENT
The appellant has not able to explain the delay on the case i.e. From 25-01-2017 to 28-04-2017, So the application of the appellant got dismissed.
Resultantly the case was dismissed.