Madhya Pradesh High Court
Leeladhar vs Rishiraj Singh on 9 February, 2017
Author: S.K. Gangele
Bench: S.K. Gangele
Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/1
HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH PRINCIPAL
SEAT AT JABALPUR
Criminal Revision No.431/1994
Leeladhar petitioner
versus
Rishiraj Singh and another respondents
Coram :
Hon'ble Shri Justice S.K. Gangele &
Hon'ble Shri Justice Anurag Shrivastava
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None for the petitioner.
Shri R.S. Patel, learned counsel for the respondent
No.1.
Shri Prakash Gupta, learned Panel Lawyer for the
respondent No. 2/State.
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Reserved on :30.01.2017
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ORDER
(Pronounced on : 09.02.2017) Per S.K. Gangele J This revision petition has been filed against the judgment of acquittal dated 02.03.1994 passed by the Court of Shri N.K. Goel, Additional Sessions Judge, Narsinghpur in Sessions Trial No.230/1992, whereby respondent No.1/Rishiraj Singh has been acquitted from the offences punishable under Sections 148, 302, 307 read with Section Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/2 149 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred as 'the IPC').
2. Accused Govind Singh, Neknarayan and others were engaged in the business of money lending. They used to advance loan on higher interest rates. There was a dispute between Bhagwan Singh and Neknarayan. Bhagwan Singh had to pay an amount of Rs. 70,000/- to Neknarayan.
3. On 27.06.1991, Ramsingh, Kali Bai, Hajju @ Hazrat and other persons came to Vikrampur Railway Station to board a train. At that time, co-accused Govind Singh, Niranjan Singh, Girwar Singh and Neknarayan armed with guns, the respondent No.1-Rishiraj armed with lathi and co- accused Battulal armed with farsa came on the spot. They had abused Ramsingh. Co-accused Govind Singh inflicted blow of lathi on Ramsingh. After hearing cry, family members of Ramsingh, wife of the petitioner, Saraswati Bai and other persons reached on the spot. The respondent No.1 had inflicted lathi blows to Kali Bai and Mooratsingh, Udalsingh, Sardar Singh, Bhagwan Singh tried to save her. However, Neknarayan, Govind Singh, Niranjan Singh and Girwar Singh had opened fire at the complainant party. In the incident, Kali Bai died on the spot after one hour. Hajju @ Hazrat, Ramsingh, Saraswati Bai, Udal Singh, Tofan Singh, Pannalal, Leeladhar (petitioner) and Mooratsingh Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/3 received gun shot injuries. The incident was reported to G.R.P., Gadarwada. The report was lodged at the Police Station and injured persons had been taken to District Hospital, Narsinghpur. The doctor (PW-2) performed postmortem of deceased Kali Bai.
4. After investigation, police filed charge-sheet against the respondent No.1-Rishiraj because, initially, the co- accused persons were absconding, hence, the trial Court proceeded against the respondent No.1. He was acquitted. Subsequently, the co-accused persons were also arrested. They abjured their guilt. The trial Court, after completion of trial, held the co-accused persons guilty for commission of offences and convicted them vide judgment dated 03.12.1998.
5. The trial Court after appreciation of evidence has acquitted the respondent No.1 for commission of aforementioned offences. The trial Court appreciated the evidence of PW-7, PW-20, PW-6 and PW-14 and held that the witnesses are not reliable. The trial Court further appreciated the evidence of the doctor PW-2, who had performed the postmortem of deceased Kali Bai and held that the injury which was sustained by the deceased Kali Bai could be caused by falling down on railway track. The witnesses have deposed that Kali Bai received number of Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/4 injuries, which is contrary to the medical evidence. The allegation against the respondent No.1 is that he had caused injury by lathi, however, this fact has not been found proved absolutely from the evidence of prosecution witnesses.
6. The Apex Court in the case of Venkatesan vs Rani and another, reported in 2013 SAR (Criminal) 1017 has held as under in regard to power of the High Court in exercising revisional jurisdiction against the judgment of acquittal:
"6. To answer the questions that have arisen in the present case, as noticed at the very outset, the extent and ambit of the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court, particularly in the context of exercise thereof in respect of a judgment of acquittal, may be briefly noticed. The law in this regard is well settled by a catena of decisions of this Court. Illustratively, as also chronologically, the decisions rendered in Pakalapati Narayana Gajapathi Raju vs. Bonapalli Peda Appadu, Akalu Ahir v. Ramdeo Ram, Mahendra Pratap Singh v. Sarju Singh, K. Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of A.P. and Logendranath Jha v. Polai Lal Biswas may be referred to. Specifically and for the purpose of a detailed illumination on the subject the contents of paras 8 and 10 of the judgment in the case of Akalu Ahir v. Ramdeo Ram (supra) may be usefully extracted below.
"8. This Court, however, by way of illustration, indicated the following categories of cases which would justify the High Court in interfering with a finding of acquittal in revision:
(i) Where the trial court has no jurisdiction to try the case, but has still Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/5 acquitted the accused;
(ii) Where the trial court has wrongly shut out evidence which the prosecution wished to produce;
(iii) Where the appellate court has wrongly held the evidence which was admitted by the trial court to be inadmissible;
(iv) Where the material evidence has been overlooked only (either) by the trial court or by the appellate court; and
(v) Where the acquittal is based on the compounding of the offence which is invalid under the law.
These categories were, however, merely illustrative and it was clarified that other cases of similar nature can also be properly held to be of exceptional nature where the High Court can justifiably interfere with the order of acquittal."
"10. No doubt, the appraisal of evidence by the trial Judge in the case in hand is not perfect or free from flaw and a Court of appeal may well have felt justified in disagreeing with its conclusion, but from this it does not follow that on revision by a private complainant, the High Court is entitled to re-appraise the evidence for itself as if it is acting as a Court of appeal and then order a re-trial. It is unfortunate that a serious offence inspired by rivalry and jealousy in the matter of election to the office of village Mukhia, should go unpunished. But that can scarcely be a valid ground for ignoring or for not strictly following the law as enunciated by this Court."
The observations in para 9 in the case of Vimal Singh v. Khuman Singh would also be apt for recapitulation and, therefore, are being Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/6 extracted below.
"9. Coming to the ambit of power of the High Court under Section 401 of the Code, the High Court in its revisional power does not ordinarily interfere with judgments of acquittal passed by the trial court unless there has been manifest error of law or procedure. The interference with the order of acquittal passed by the trial court is limited only to exceptional cases when it is found that the order under revision suffers from glaring illegality or has caused miscarriage of justice or when it is found that the trial court has no jurisdiction to try the case or where the trial court has illegally shut out the evidence which otherwise ought to have been considered or where the material evidence which clinches the issue has been overlooked. These are the instances where the High Court would be justified in interfering with the order of acquittal. Sub-section (3) of Section 401 mandates that the High Court shall not convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction. Thus, the High Court would not be justified in substituting an order of acquittal into one of conviction even if it is convinced that the accused deserves conviction. No doubt, the High Court in exercise of its revisional power can set aside an order of acquittal if it comes within the ambit of exceptional cases enumerated above, but it cannot convert an order of acquittal into an order of conviction. The only course left to the High Court in such exceptional cases is to order retrial."
7. The above consideration would go to show that the revisional jurisdiction of the High Courts while examining an order of acquittal is extremely narrow and ought to be Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/7 exercised only in cases where the Trial Court had committed a manifest error of law or procedure or had overlooked and ignored relevant and material evidence thereby causing miscarriage of justice. Re-appreciation of evidence is an exercise that the High Court must refrain from while examining an order of acquittal in the exercise of its revisional jurisdiction under the Code. Needless to say, if within the limited parameters, interference of the High Court is justified the only course of action that can be adopted is to order a re-trial after setting aside the acquittal. As the language of Section 401 of the Code makes it amply clear there is no power vested in the High Court to convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction."
7. The principle of law laid down by the Hon'ble Apex Court is that power of the High Court in revisional jurisdiction while examining the judgment of acquittal is extremely narrow and it can be exercised where the trial Court had committed a manifest error of law or procedure or had overlooked and ignored the relevant and material evidence thereby causing miscarriage of justice. Apart from this, the High Court can only order re-trial after setting aside the judgment of acquittal, however, the High Court has no power to convert the judgment of acquittal into conviction.
8. On the basis of principle of law laid down by the Apex Court in the case of Venkatesan (supra) and after appreciation of evidence, in our opinion, this is not a case where the Court can exercise power of revision and remand Cr.R. No. 431 of 1994/8 the case for re-trial by setting aside the judgment of acquittal. Hence, the revision petition is hereby dismissed.
9. No order as to costs.
(S.K. GANGELE) (ANURAG SHRIVASTAVA)
JUDGE JUDGE
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