This revision petition, filed against an order of acquittal by the Additional Sessions Judge, was dismissed by the High Court. The Court reaffirmed that appellate courts should not disturb acquittals if two reasonable conclusions are possible on the evidence.
Revision dismissed; order of acquittal of the accused maintained.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
Court No. - 2
Case :- CRIMINAL REVISION No. - 500 of 1990 Revisionist :- Lalit Krishna Opposite Party :- Shiv Kumar & Others Counsel for Revisionist :- I.M. Khan
Counsel for Opposite Party :- Rajul Bhargava,A.G.A.,Sanjay Goswami
Hon'ble Dr. Kaushal Jayendra Thaker,J.
"In any event the High Court entertained an appeal treating to be an appeal against acquittal, it was in fact exercising the revisional jurisdiction. Even while exercising an appellate power against a judgement of acquittal, the High Court should have borne in mind the well settled principles of law that where two view are possible, the appellate Court should not interfere with the finding of acquittal recorded by the Court below."
"42. From the above decisions, in our considered view, the following general principles regarding powers of the appellate Court while dealing with an appeal against an order of acquittal emerge:
[1] An appellate Court has full power to review, reappreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded.
[2] The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 puts no limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such power and an appellate Court on the evidence
before it may reach its own conclusion, both on questions of fact and of law.
[3] Various expressions, such as, "substantial and compelling reasons", "good and sufficient grounds", "very strong circumstances", "distorted conclusions", "glaring mistakes", etc. are not intended to curtain extensive powers of an appellate Court in an appeal against acquittal. Such phraseologies are more in the nature of "flourishes of language" to emphasis the reluctance of an appellate Court to interfere with acquittal than to curtail the power of the Court to review the evidence and to come to its own conclusion.
[4] An appellate Court, however, must bear in mind that in case of acquittal there is double presumption in favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of innocence is available to him under the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is proved guilty by a competent Court of law. Secondly, the accused having secured his acquittal, the presumption of his innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and strengthened by the trial Court.
[5] If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate Court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial Court."
"16. From the aforesaid decisions, it is apparent that while exercising the powers in appeal against the order of acquittal the Court of appeal would not ordinarily interfere with the order of acquittal unless the approach of the lower Court is vitiated by some manifest illegality and the conclusion arrived at would not be arrived at by any reasonable person and, therefore, the decision is to be characterized as perverse. Merely because two views are possible, the Court of appeal would not take the view which would upset the judgment delivered by the Court below. However, the appellate Court has a power to review the evidence if it is of the view that the conclusion arrived at by the Court below is perverse and the Court has committed a manifest error of law and ignored the material evidence on record. A duty is cast upon the appellate Court, in such circumstances, to reappreciate the evidence to arrive to a just decision on the basis of material placed on record to find out whether any of the accused is connected with the commission of the crime he is charged with."
"10. The High Court has noted that the prosecution version was not clearly believable. Some of the so called eye witnesses stated that the deceased died because his anke was twisted by an accused. Others said that he was strangulated. It was the case of the prosecution that the injured witnesses were thrown out of the bus. The doctor who conducted the postmortem and examined the witnesses had categorically stated that it was not possible that somebody would throw a person out of the bus when it was in running condition.
11. Considering the parameters of appeal against the judgement of acquittal, we are not inclined to interfere in this appeal. The view of the High Court cannot be termed to be perverse and is a possible view on the evidence."
"4. It is not in dispute that the trial Court, on appreciation of oral and documentary evidence led in by the prosecution and defence, acquitted the accused in respect of the charges leveled against them. On appeal by the State, the High Court, by impugned order, reversed the said decision and convicted the accused under Section 302 read with Section 34 of IPC and awarded RI for life. Since counsel for the appellants very much emphasized that the High Court has exceeded its jurisdiction in upsetting the order of acquittal into conviction, let us analyze the scope and power of the High Court in an appeal filed against the order of acquittal. This Court in a series of decisions has repeatedly laid down that as the first appellate court the High Court, even while dealing with an appeal against acquittal, was also entitled, and obliged as well, to scan through and if need be reappreciate the entire evidence, though while choosing to interfere only the court should find an absolute assurance of the guilt on the basis of the evidence on record and not merely because the High Court could take one more possible or a different view only. Except the above, where the matter of the extent and depth of consideration of the appeal is concerned, no distinctions or differences in approach are envisaged in dealing with an appeal as such merely because one was against conviction or the other against an acquittal. [Vide State of Rajasthan vs. Sohan Lal and Others, (2004) 5 SCC 573]."
Court in granting benefit of acquittal, the Appellate Court should not easily disturb the acquittal.
Order Date :- 22.9.2018 sailesh
2 issues framed by the court
Whether the High Court can interfere with the order of acquittal passed by the trial court.
Whether the High Court can interfere with the order of acquittal passed by the trial court given there are reasonable conclusions possible based on evidence on record.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
M.S. Narayana Menon @ Mani Vs. State of Kerala & AnrReferred¶9
M.S. Narayana Menon @ Mani Vs. State of Kerala & Anr, (2006) 6 S.C.C. 39 · Who else cites this
Chandrappa Vs. State of KarnatakaReferred¶11
Chandrappa Vs. State of Karnataka (2007) 4 S.C.C. 415 · Who else cites this
State of Goa V. Sanjay Thakran & AnrReferred¶20
State of Goa V. Sanjay Thakran & Anr, (2007) 3 S.C.C. 75 · Who else cites this
State of Uttar Pradesh Vs. Ram Veer Singh & OrsReferred¶22
State of Uttar Pradesh Vs. Ram Veer Singh & Ors, 2007 A.I.R. S.C.W. 5553 · Who else cites this
Girja Prasad (Dead) by LRs Vs. State of MPReferred¶22
Girja Prasad (Dead) by LRs Vs. State of MP, 2007 A.I.R. S.C.W. 5589 · Who else cites this
Luna Ram Vs. Bhupat Singh and OrsReferred¶23
Luna Ram Vs. Bhupat Singh and Ors, (2009) SCC 749 · Who else cites this
Mookkiah and Anr. Vs. State, rep. by the Inspector of Police, Tamil NaduReferred¶26
Mookkiah and Anr. Vs. State, rep. by the Inspector of Police, Tamil Nadu, AIR 2013 SC 321 · Who else cites this
State of Karnataka Vs. HemareddyReferred¶28
State of Karnataka Vs. Hemareddy, AIR 1981, SC 1417 · Who else cites this
Girija Nandini Devi V. Bigendra Nandini ChoudharyReferred¶29
Girija Nandini Devi V. Bigendra Nandini Choudhary (1967) 1 SCR 93:(AIR 1967 SC 1124) · Who else cites this
Vinod Kumar Vs. State of HaryanaReferred¶30
Vinod Kumar Vs. State of Haryana, AIR 2015 SC 1032 · Who else cites this
Gulbar Husain Vs. State of AssamReferred¶30
Gulbar Husain Vs. State of Assam, 2015 (11) SCC 242 · Who else cites this
Lalit Krishna
Shiv Kumar
Kaushal Jayendra Thaker
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
