The single judge bench of Justice Pankaj Jain of the Punjab and Haryana High court in the case of Sarabjit Jain V. State of Punjab & Ors held that the high court will not be justified in interfering with an order of acquittal merely because the trial court has taken a wrong view of the law or has erred in appreciation of evidence.
BRIEF FACTS
The factual matrix of the case is that the present petition is the revision of the order passed by the trial court. After that when the statement was made by the petitioner, the proceedings were set in motion, and on the basis of that statement, the FIR was registered under sections 447, 551,506, 148, and 149. Thereafter, the trial court acquitted the accused after analyzing the evidence and stated that the prosecution has failed to prove its case.
The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner contended that the trial court has wrongly appreciated the evidence on record which results in the perverse findings. It was further contended that the benefit of the doubt has been wrongly extended to the respondents on account of a defective investigation conducted by the police. At last, it was further stated that the court while exercising revisional jurisdiction should reappreciate the evidence and reverse the findings of the court below.
COURT’S OBSERVATION
The hon'ble court relied upon the judgments titled Bindeshwari Prasad Singh @BP Singh and others V State of Bihar (Now Jharkhand) and another for determining the scope of revision in which it was held that
“We have carefully considered the material on record and we are satisfied that the high court was not justified in re-appreciating the evidence on record and coming to a different conclusion in a revision preferred by the informant under section 401 of the code of criminal procedure, sub-section (3) of section 401 in terms provide that nothing in section 401 shall be deemed to authorize a high court to convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction. The aforesaid sub-section, which places a limitation on the powers of the revisional court, prohibiting it from converting a finding of acquittal into one of conviction, is itself indicative of the nature and extent of the revisional power conferred by section 401 of the code of criminal procedure. If the high court could not convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction directly, it could not do so indirectly by the method of ordering a re-trial. It is well settled by a catena of decisions of this court that the high court will ordinally not interfere in revision with an order of acquittal except in exceptional cases where the interest of public justice requires interference for the correction of manifest illegality or the prevention of gross miscarriage of justice. The high court will not be justified in interfering with an order of acquittal merely because the trial court has taken a wrong view of the law or has erred in appreciation of evidence. It is neither possible nor advisable to make an exhaustive list of circumstances in which the exercise of revisional jurisdiction may be justified, but the decision of this court has laid down the parameters of the exercise of revisional jurisdiction by the high court under section 401 of the code of criminal procedure in an appeal against acquittal by a private party.”
At last, after taking into consideration the facts and circumstances of the case the court held that no case for exercising revisional jurisdiction is made out.
CASE NAME- Sarabjit Jain V. State of Punjab & Ors
CITATION- CRR NO. 2925 OF 2018 (O&M)
CORUM- Justice Pankaj Jain
DATE- 31.08.22
Read Judgment @Latestlaws.com
Picture Source :
