Criminal Appeals Nos 160 and 171 of 1967
Appeals by special leave from the judgment and order dated May 12 1967 of the Orissa High Court in Criminal Appeal No 194 of 1965
SN Anand for the appellants in CrA No 160 of 67
RK Garg SCAgarwal DP Singh Sumitra Chakravarty and Uma Dutt for the appellants in CrA No  171 of 1967
VC Mahajan and RN Sachthey for the respondent in CrA No 160 of 1967
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Mitter J
These two appeals by special leave are from one judgment of the High Court of Orissa hearing an appeal from an order of acquittal of 31 persons accused on charges under as 147 323 and 325 of the Indian Penal Code for being members of an unlawful assembly and having voluntarily caused hurt and inter alia a grievous one by dislocating a tooth by means of a knife like thing of one Jagabandhu Behera the appellant before the High Court
The incident is alleged to have happened on October 4 1963 at about 11 am in village Anantapur in course of which the accused persons are said to
have assaulted Jagabandhu Behera with lathis and sharp instruments
The motive for the crime was said to be enmity arising out of Gram panchayat election and previous litigation between Jagabandhu Behera and Khetrabasi Samal one of the said 31 persons
The first information report was lodged at 5 pm by one Maguni Charan Biswal who however was not examined at the trial
In this report ten persons were stated to have taken part in assaulting and hurting Jagabandhu
More than six weeks thereafter Jagabandhu filed a complaint before a Magistrate in which he named 31 persons including those against whom the first information report had been lodged as his assailants
The complainant stated therein that he had been assaulted so mercilessly as to render him unconscious and he recovered consciousness in Anantapur Dispensary where he was treated by a doctor
From there he was taken to a hospital in Cuttack and was lodged there till November 18 1962
The Magistrate examined the complainant on the same day and directed another Magistrate of the First Class to inquire and report
On January 23 1963 after getting the report of such inquiry and hearing the person against whom the complaint was made on their protest petition the Magistrate held that there was a prima facie case against the accused persons under sections 147 323 IPC except the first ten accused persons as per the complaint petition since they had already been sent for trial in 882 GR No 1943 of 1962
He took cognizance against accused persons from serial Nos
11 to 31 as per the complaint petition under sections 147323 IPC The GR case had already been started on the basis of the first information report
On July 12 1963 the complainant Jagabandhu Behera filed a petition to club the complaint case along with the analogous GR case and after giving a hearing to both parties the Magistrate passed an order on 15th July 1963 to the effect that the two cases were to be clubbed together and provisions of section 252 Cr
PC were to be followed
The proceedings went on for an inordinately long time and ultimately on August 23 1965 the trying Magistrate delivered a judgment acquitting all the accused
Jagabandhu Behera filed an appeal to the High Court under section 4173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the grounds urged in support of such appeal were substantially based on the
alleged failure of the Magistrate to take a proper view of the evidence
Before the High Court a point was taken on behalf of the respondents challenging the maintainability of the appeal as against accused 1 to 10 against whom cognizance was taken on the police report
Among these ten persons are the appellants in the two appeals to this Court
It was urged that as these ten persons had figured as accused in GR Case No 1943 of 1962 an appeal against their acquittal would not lie at the instance of the complainant under section 4173 but would only be maintainable if preferred under section 4171 by the State Government
It was also contended that mere clubbing together of the two cases the GR case and the complainant s case for joint trial would not change the character thereof so as to convert the GR case into a complaint case
The High Court over ruled this objection mainly on the ground that section 239 Cr
PC allowed the trial of a number of persons whether accused of the same offence or of different offences if these were committed in the course of the same transaction
The High Court then considered the merits of the appeal examined the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and took the view that the testimony of prosecution witnesses 1 2 and 5 who claimed to have witnessed the incident themselves had been discarded by the Magistrate on extraneous considerations
Sifting the evidence for itself the High Court held that seven of the accused ie the appellants to this Court were guilty of some of the charges framed against them and passed sentences ranging from three months to six months in different cases after setting aside the acquittal
It was contended before us on behalf of the appellants that the appeal to the High Court was incompetent and in our view this contention must be accepted
There were two separate cases 883 of which cognizance  was taken separately
One was started on the basis of a police report while the other was on the complaint of Jagabandhu Behera
As the accused in both the cases were said to have committed the offences
in the course
of the same transaction the cases were clubbed together for the purpose of trial and such a course was clearly permissible under section 239 Cr
That did not however alter the nature of the cases so as to affect their appealability under section 417
The two cases retained their individuality except for the convenience of the trial
If the cases had ended in conviction they would have had to be separately recorded
The first ten accused would have had to appeal from their conviction and sentence in the GR case and similarly the remaining accused from the complaint case
If the State did not think it proper to direct the Public Prosecutor to present an appeal to the High Court from the order of acquittal in the GR case it might have been open to the complainant to
invoke the powers of the High Court under section 439 of the  Code if proper grounds for revision were present
Counsel for the respondents
argued that this was a case where we should not allow the appeal on the ground that the High Court had gone wrong in exercising its powers under section 4173 of the Code but should send the matter back to the High Court for disposal according to law including the powers under section 439 of the Code
It was said that Jagabandhu Behera had been beaten up
by a number of persons in a public place in broad day light and although there might be infirmities in the evidence adduced on behalf of the prosecution and contradictory statements made by some of the prosecution witnesses we should not put an end to the proceedings here but send the matter back to the High Court for proper disposal
In our view the law does not permit such a course to be adopted on the facts of this case
The powers of the High Court under section 439 Cr
PC although wide are subject to certain limitations
Section 439 4 expressly provides that the section shall not be deemed to authorise the High Court to convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction
This Court has had to
examine the jurisdiction of the High Court under this section on several occasions
In D Stephens vs Nosibulla 1 it was pointed out see at p 291 that  The revisional jurisdiction conferred on the High Court under section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is not to be lightly exercised when it is invoked by a private complainant against an order of acquittal against which the Government has a right of appeal under section 417
It could be exercised only in exceptional cases where the interests of public justice  881 require interference
for the correction of a manifest illegality or the prevention of a gross miscarriage of justice
This jurisdiction is not ordinarily invoked or used merely because the lower court has taken a wrong view of the law or misapprehension the evidence on record
Again in Logendranath Jha  Others vs Polailal Biswas1 where the High Court had set aside an order of acquittal of the appellants by the Sessions Judge and directed their retrial this Court see at p 681 said  Though sub section 1 of section 439 authorises the High Court to exercise in its discretion any of the powers conferred on a court of appeal by section 423 sub section 4 specifically excludes the power to convert a finding of acquittal into one
of conviction 
This does not mean that in dealing with a revision petition by a private party against an order of acquittal the High Court could in the absence of any error on a point of law reappraise the evidence and reverse the findings of facts on which the acquittal was based provided only it stopped short of finding the accused guilty and passing sentence on him
By merely characterising the judgment of the trial court as perverse  and lacking in perspective  the High Court cannot reverse pure findings of fact based on the trial court s appreciation of the evidence in the case
In K Chinnaswamy Reddy vs State of Andhra Pradesh2
The court proceeded to define the limits of the jurisdiction of the High Court under section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code while setting aside an order of acquittal
It was said    this jurisdiction should in our opinion be exercised by the High Court only m exceptional cases when there is some glaring defect in the procedure and there is a manifest error on a point of law and consequently there has been a flagrant miscarriage of justice
It is not possible to
lay down the criteria for determining such exceptional cases which would cover all contingencies
We may however indicate some cases of this kind which would in our opinion justify the
High Court in interfering with a finding of acquittal in revision
These cases may be where the trial court has no jurisdiction to try the case but has still acquitted the accused or where the trial court has wrongly shut out evidence which the prosecution wished to produce or wh ere the appeal court has wrongly held evidence which was admitted by the trial court to be inadmissible or where material evidence has been overlooked 1 2 1963 3 SCR 412 418 885 either by the trial court or by the appeal court or where the acquittal is based on a compounding of the offence which is invalid under the law
It may be that a case not covered by any of the contingencies mentioned above may still arise
But where as here the appeal court the High Court in tiffs case has set aside the order of acquittal almost entirely on the ground that the Magistrate should not have disbelieved the three eye witnesses viz PWs 1 2 and 5 the case clearly falls within the contingencies mentioned in the above decision of this Court
The High Court judgment does not show that the trial court shut out any evidence which the prosecution wanted to produce or admitted any in admissible evidence or overlooked any material evidence
The Magistrate examined the evidence produced by the prosecution
According to him there was strong enmity between the two parties of Jagabandhu Behera and Khetrabasi Samall and although the incident was supposed to have taken place in front of a large number of shops and before a large gathering only one person from those shops PW 5 who was a chance witness occasionally going to the place for the purpose of carrying on his business in fish was examined by the prosecution and there was no explanation for not examining the other witnesses named in the complaint petition
PW 1 one of the witnesses mentioned in the judgment of the High Court and relied on by it was the complainant s father in law and as such a person interested in the success of the prosecution
Relying on the testimony of the doctor who had examined Jagabandhu Behera the Magistrate found himself unable tO accept the evidence of the prosecution witnesses to the effect that the injury to the tooth was caused by a sharp cutting instrument in which case other external injuries could not have been avoided
The Magistrate was doubtful as to whether the accused persons had any hand in the commission of the crime and although the assault on Jagabandhu was a brutal one there was according to the Magistrate no proof beyond reasonable doubt that it was the accused persons who had committed it
The High Court proceeded to reappraise the evidence of the witnesses and upset the finding of the Magistrate thereon on the ground that he had not taken the trouble of sifting the grain from the chaff
Clearly such a course is not permissible under section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code
Nor in our opinion the facts and circumstances of this case warrant the ordering of a re trial by the High Court if it felt disposed to exercise powers under s 423 Cr
PC expressly included in section 439
Sending the ease back to the High Court can serve no useful purpose
As the appeal to the High CoUrt was incompetent we allow the appeals and direct the cancellation of their bail bonds
VPS Appeal allowed


Summary:
A first information report to the police was lodged against the appellants and some others ten persons in all for having taken part in an assault and causing hurt to the victim of the assault
On the police report the Magistrate took cognizance of the case
More than six were after the incident the victim filed a complaint before the Magistrate naming thirty one persons including the ten persons against whom the first in formation was given as his assailants and the Magistrate took cognizance of the case against the other twenty one accused as a separate case
On the application of the complainant victim the two
cases one on the police report and the other on the private complaint were clubbed and tried together
The Magistrate on an examination of the evidence held that there was no proof beyond reasonable doubt that the accused persons committed the assault and acquitted all of them
The complainant then filed an appeal under section 4173 Criminal Procedure Code to the High Court
The appellants against whom cognizance of the case was taken on the police report challenged the maintainability of the appeal on the ground that the appeal against their acquittal was maintainable only if preferred by the State Government under section 4171
The High Court overruled the objection reappraised the evidence of the witnesses upset the finding of the Magistrate and convicted the appellants
In appeal to this Court on the questions 1  As to the maintainability of the appeal by the complainant and 2 Whether the matter should be sent back to the High Court for disposal under section 439 of the Code HELD 1  Though the two
cases could be clubbed together for convenience of trial under section 239 of the Code the nature and identity of the cases in relation to their appealability under section 417 were not altered
In the case started against the appellants on the police report the appeal against acquittal could have been filed only by the State Government and if No such appeal was filed the complainant could only invoke the revisional powers of the High Court under section 439 if proper grounds were present
883 A C 2 The High Court can exercise its revisional powers under section 439 when invoked by a private complainant against an order of acquittal against which the State has a right of appeal under section 417 only in exceptional cases when there is some glaring defect in the procedure and there is a manifest error on a point of law and consequently there has been a flagrant miscarriage of justice
The present case however is one of mere appraisal of evidence
In such a case the High Court under section 439 could not re examine the evidence or order a retrial
Therefore the case was not a fit one for sending back to the High Court
883 E F 884 E G 885 A F H D Stephens vs Nosibolla   Logendranath jha vs Polailal Biswas  and K Chinnaswamy Reddy vs State A p
  418 followed