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TMI Blog2013 (11) TMI 1526X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... charges. Aggrieved by the aforesaid, the informant preferred Criminal Revision Petition No. 147 of 2007 and the High Court, by the impugned judgment and order dated 5th of August, 2008 maintained the order of acquittal of all accused persons, excepting accused no. 3, Ganesha who has been held guilty for the offence punishable under Section 324 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of six months and also to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/-, and in default of payment of fine, to undergo further simple imprisonment for a period of three months. It is against this order that Ganesha has preferred this special leave petition. Leave granted. The prosecution was set in motion on the basis of a report give ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ourt observed as follows: "17. In my view, the aforesaid reasoning of the trial court is totally perverse and contrary to the evidence on record. We have seen from the evidence of P.Ws. 2, 4, 5 and 6 that all of them have come out successfully in their cross-examination and all of them have spoken to the fact of A-3 assaulting P.W. 2 with a stick near his left eye and the other accused persons catching hold of P.W.2. Furthermore, it is also clear from the evidence of P.Ws. 2 and 5 that the incident happened in the land of the complainant when the cattle belonging to the accused went to the land of the complainant for grazing the crop. Therefore, no doubt arises as to the place of incident." Mr. Akshat Shrivastav, learned counsel appearing ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y pleader in his own defence. (3) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to authorise a High court to convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction. (4) Where under this Code an appeal lies and no appeal is brought, no proceeding by way of revision shall be entertained at the instance of the party who could have appealed. (5) Where under this Code an appeal lies but an application for revision has been made to the High Court by any person and the High Court is satisfied that such application was made under the erroneous belief that no appeal lies thereto and that it is necessary in the interests of justice so to do, the High Court may treat the application for revision as a petition of appeal and deal with the same accordingly." ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of the Code, while exercising such power, cannot convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction. However, in a case where the finding of acquittal is recorded on account of misreading of evidence or non-consideration of evidence or perverse appreciation of evidence, nothing prevents the High Court from setting aside the order of acquittal at the instance of the informant in revision and directing fresh disposal on merit by the trial court. In the event of such direction, the trial court shall be obliged to re-appraise the evidence in light of the observation of the revisional court and take an independent view uninfluenced by any of the observations of the revisional court on the merit of the case. By way of abundant caution, we ma ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... g of acquittal into one of conviction directly, it could not do so indirectly by the method of ordering a retrial. It is well settled by a catena of decisions of this Court that the High Court will ordinarily 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 a 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 exercise of revisional jurisdi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... for lodging the report is the informant. This is obvious from sub-section (2) of Section 154 of the Code which, inter alia, provides for giving a copy of the information to the 'informant' and not to the 'complainant'. However the complainant is the person who lodges the complaint. The word 'complaint' is defined under Section 2(d) of the Code to mean any allegation made orally or in writing to a Magistrate and the person who makes the allegation is the complainant, which would be evident from Section 200 of the Code, which provides for examination of the complainant in a complaint-case. Therefore, these words carry different meanings and are not interchangeable. In short, the person giving information, which leads to lodging of the report ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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