Mohinder Kaur v. State of Punjab & Ors.

accused in case FIR No.54 dated 9.1.2001 registered at Police Station Chamkaur Sahib, under Sections 342, 354, 323, 34 IPC. The learned trial Court having found the accused guilty for various offences sentenced them as under:- Accused Lachhman Singh was sentenced to undergo rigorous Crl. Rev. No.1673 of 2003 [2] imprisonment for one year and to pay a fine of Rs.200/- for offence under Section 354 IPC. In default of payment of fine, he was to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for one month. Accused Lachhman Singh, Swaran Singh, Labh Kaur and Harpreet Kaur were sentenced under Section 342 IPC to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months each and to pay a fine of Rs.200/- each. In default of payment of fine, they were to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for one month. They were also sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months each and to pay a fine of Rs.200/- each for offence under Section 323 read with Section 34 IPC. In default of payment of fine, they were to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for one month.

All the sentences were ordered to run concurrently. Aggrieved against the same, the accused had filed an appeal. The Appellate Court below accepted the appeal and acquitted all the accused. The present revision petition has been filed to assail the judgment of acquittal rendered by the lower Appellate Court. State of Punjab has opted not to file the appeal against the acquittal of respondents. In the present case, FIR was lodged on the statement made by Mohinder Kaur, wherein she had stated that on 3.10.2000 at about 11.00 A.M., when she came in her courtyard to pick up the fire wood, Lachhman Singh gave a fist blow on her left eye. Harpreet Kaur gave kick blows in her abdomen. Labh Kaur caught hold the hairs of her head. She raised a noise. At that time, during the struggle, her gold ear rings fell down. Jagir Singh son of Munshi Ram and Kapur Singh son of Jati Ram got separated the complainant from the accused.

When complainant was going to Bela Crl. Rev. No.1673 of 2003 [3] Police Post for making the report, at that time, Lachhman Singh and Swaran Singh also made an attempt to outrage her modesty and had torn her clothes. Complainant herself appeared as PW1, Nasib Singh appeared as PW2, Paramjit Singh appeared as PW3 and Gurmail Singh as PW4. Thereafter, the prosecution closed its evidence. Statements of the accused were recorded under Section 313 Cr.P.C. They denied all incriminating circumstances. The lower Appellate Court held that occurrence in the present case had taken place on 3.10.2000 at 11.00 A.M. Statement of the complainant was recorded on 4.10.2000 at 6.00 P.M.. The Court further held that prosecution had failed to prove the medico legal report on the record. The lower Appellate Court further held that neither the medico legal report nor the ruqa which was sent to the police station have been proved on the record.

It further held that the Investigating Officer had failed to prove the delay in lodging of the FIR which was more than 30 hours. The Court further held that a civil litigation was pending between the two parties about the barra and in the original complaint, there was no mention of previous litigation or motive. I have perused the findings of the lower Appellate Court. Same cannot be said to be perverse. The view formulated by the lower Appellate Court is the one which is possible on the facts of the present case. It was held in AIR 1968 Supreme Court 707 Mahendra Partap Singh vs. Sarju Singh and another, relying upon D.Stephens vs. Nosibolla, AIR 1951 SC 196, as under: “only two grounds are mentioned by this Court as entitling the High Court to set aside an acquittal in a Crl. Rev. No.1673 of 2003 [4] revision and to order a retrial. They are that there must exist a manifest illegality in the judgment of the Court of Session ordering the acquittal or there must be a gross miscarriage of justice.

In explaining these two propositions, this Court further states that the High Court is not entitled to interfere even if a wrong view of law is taken by the Court of Session or if even there is mis-appreciation of evidence. Again, in Logendranath Jha v. Polajlal Biswas, 1951 SCR 676 (AIR 1951 SC 316), this Court points out that the High Court is entitled in revision to set aside an acquittal if there is an error on a point of law or no appraisal of the evidence at all. This Court observes that it is not sufficient to say that the judgment under revision is “perverse” or “lacking in true correct perspective”. It is pointed out further that by ordering a retrial, the dice is loaded against the accused, because however much the High Court may caution the Subordinate Court, it is always difficult to re-weigh the evidence ignoring the opinion of the High Court. Again in K.Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, 1963 (3) SCR 412 = (AIR 1962 SC 1788), it is pointed out that an interference in revision with an order of acquittal can only take place if there is a glaring defect of procedure such as that the Court had no jurisdiction to try the case or the Court had shut out some material evidence which was admissible or Crl.

Rev. No.1673 of 2003 [5] attempted to take into account evidence which was not admissible or had overlooked some evidence. Although the list given by this Court is not exhaustive of all the circumstances in which the High Court may interfere with an acquittal in revision it is obvious that the defect in the judgment under revision must be analogous to those actually indicated by this Court. As stated not one of these points which have been laid down by this Court, was covered in the present case. In fact on reading the judgment of the High Court it is apparent to us that the learned judge has re-weighed the evidence from his own point of view and reached inferences contrary to those of the Sessions judge on almost every point. This we do not conceive to be his duty in dealing in revision with an acquittal when Government has not chosen to file an appeal against it. In other words, the learned Judge in the High Court has not attended to the rules laid down by this Court and has acted in breach of them.” In Akalu Ahir v.

Ramdeo Ram, AIR 1973 Supreme Court 2145 (V 60 C 352), Hon'ble apex Court observed as under: “This Court then proceeded to observe that the High Court is certainly entitled in revision to set aside the order of acquittal even at the instance of private parties, though the State may not have thought fit to appeal, but it was emphasized that this jurisdiction should be exercised only in exceptional cases when Crl. Rev. No.1673 of 2003 [6] “there is some glaring defect in the procedure or there is a manifest error on a point of law and consequently there has been a flagrant miscarriage of justice.” In face of prohibition in Section 439(4), Cr.P.C., for the High Court to convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction, it makes all the more incumbent on the High Court to see that it does not convert the finding of acquittal into one of conviction by the indirect method of ordering re-trial.

No doubt, in the opinion of this Court, no criteria for determining such exceptional cases which would cover all contingencies for attracting the High Court’s power of ordering re-trial can be laid down. 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 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 Crl. Rev. No.1673 of 2003 [7] over-looked 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. In Mahendra Pratap Singh, (1968) 2 SCR 287 = (AIR 1968 SC 707) (supra) the position was again reviewed and the rule laid down in the three earlier cases reaffirmed. In that case the reading of the judgment of the High Court made it plain that it had re-weighed the evidence from its own point of view and reached inferences contrary to those of the Sessions Judge on almost every point. This court pointed out that it was not the duty of the High Court to do so while dealing with an acquittal on revision, when the Government had not chosen to file an appeal against it. “In other words” said this Court, “the learned Judge in the High Court has not attended to the rules laid down by this Court and has acted in breach of them.” Similar view was reiterated by Hon'ble apex Court in Bansi Lal and others vs.