High Court While Exercising Revisional Jurisdiction Under Section 401 CrPC Cannot Convert Acquittal Into Conviction: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court observed that a High Court while exercising revisional jurisdiction under Section 401 of Code of Criminal Procedure cannot convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction."If the order of acquittal has been passed by the trial Court, the High Court may remit the matter to the trial Court and even direct retrial. However, if the order of acquittal is passed by the first appellate court, in that case, the High Court has two options available, (i) to remit the matter to the first appellate Court to rehear the appeal; or (ii) in an appropriate case remit the matter to the trial Court for retrial.", the bench comprising Justices MR Shah and Sanjiv Khanna observed.In this case, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Tiruchirapalli convicted the accused under the Sections 147, 148, 324, 326 IPC. and acquitted them under Sections 307 and 506(ii) IPC. The first appellate Court allowed the appeal preferred by the accused and acquitted the accused. The criminal appeals filed by the victims against acquittal of the accused under Sections 307 and 506(ii) IPC were dismissed. The victims thus preferred criminal revision application before the Madras High Court under Section 397 r/w 401 Cr.P.C. The High Court set aside the judgment and order passed by the first appellate Court and consequently restored the judgment and order of conviction and sentence passed by the trial Court.The issues raised in the appeal before the Supreme Court by the appellant-accused were the following:i) Whether the High Court in exercise of the revisional jurisdiction under Section 401 Cr.P.C. is justified in setting aside the order of acquittal and convicting the accused by converting the finding of acquittal into one of conviction? ii) In a case where the victim has a right of appeal against the order of acquittal, now as provided under Section 372 Cr.P.C and the victim has not availed such a remedy and has not preferred the appeal, whether the revision application is required to be entertained at the instance of a party/victim instead of preferring an appeal?; and iii) While exercising the powers under sub-section (5) of Section 401 Cr.P.C. treating the revision application as petition of appeal and deal with the same accordingly, the High Court is required to pass a judicial order?Regarding the first issue, the bench referred to following judgments viz K. Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1962 SC 1788; Sheetal Prasad v. Sri Kant, (2010) 2 SCC 190; Ganesha v. Sharanappa, (2014) 1 SCC 87; and Ram Briksh Singh v. Ambika Yadav, (2004) 7 SCC 665 and observed thus:"9. Applying the law laid down by this Court in the aforesaid decisions and on a plain reading of sub-section (3) of Section 401 Cr.P.C., it has to be held that sub-section (3) of Section 401 Cr.P.C. prohibits/bars the 12 High Court to convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction. Though and as observed hereinabove, the High Court has revisional power to examine whether there is manifest error of law or procedure etc., however, after giving its own findings on the findings recorded by the court acquitting the accused and after setting aside the order of acquittal, the High Court has to remit the matter to the trial Court and/or the first appellate Court, as the case may be. As observed by this Court in the case of K. Chinnaswamy Reddy (supra), if the order of acquittal has been passed by the trial Court, the High Court may remit the matter to the trial Court and even direct retrial. However, if the order of acquittal is passed by the first appellate court, in that case, the High Court has two options available, (i) to remit the matter to the first appellate Court to rehear the appeal; or (ii) in an appropriate case remit the matter to the trial Court for retrial and in such a situation the procedure as mentioned in paragraph 11 of the decision in K. Chinnaswamy Reddy (supra), referred to hereinabove, can be followed. Therefore, in the present case, the High Court has erred in quashing and setting aside the order of acquittal and reversing and/or converting a finding of acquittal into one of conviction and consequently convicted the accused, while exercising the powers under Section 401 Cr.P.C. The order of conviction by the High Court, while exercising the revisional jurisdiction under Section 401 Cr.P.C., is therefore unsustainable, beyond the scope and ambit of 13 Section 401 Cr.P.C., more particularly sub-section (3) of Section 401 Cr.P.C. Issue no.1 is answered accordingly"Regarding the second issue, the court held that the revision application against the order of acquittal at the instance of the victim or the complainant, as the case may be, shall not be entertained and the victim or the complainant, as the case may be, shall be relegated to prefer the appeal as provided under Section 372 or Section 378(4), as the case may be. Referring to sub-section (4) of Section 401 Cr.P.C., the court observed:10.1 It cannot be disputed that now after the ...

High Court While Exercising Revisional Jurisdiction Under Section 401 CrPC Cannot Convert Acquittal Into Conviction: Supreme Court

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