N Criminal Appeal No 191 of 1971
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order of the Bombay High Court dated 25 2 1972 in criminal appeal No 683 of 1971 Ms M K Ramamurthi  Co for the appellant
M N Shroff and Vineet Kumar for the respondents
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by BEG J
The allegations on questions of fact raised in the appeal now before us were quite unusual
The judgment of a Division Bench of the High Court of Bombay in Criminal Appeal No 683 of 1971 in respect of coaccused Syed Ali Naki Hade Hasan who was acquitted on 25 2 1972 shows the nature of the allegations made by the prosecutor 688 in this case
On those allegations it became necessary to consider whether the accused who had been put on trial together with six others was actually in possession of a Hotel
The appellant claimed to be the owner of a hotel of which Jagannath complainant was said to be the manager
The case of the Manager was that he had been forcefully dispossessed by the accused and that certain properties belonging to him and others including some money were mis appropriated by the accused
Therefore the appellant and five others were charged under Section 395 Indian Penal Code as well as under Section 452 read with Section 34 IPC
According to the accused Shri Jagannath and his brother the complainant were only licensees
However these are questions relating to the merits of a case in which the Trial Court had acquitted accused numbers 3 to 8 and the High Court acquitted accused No 2
The appeal of the only remaining accused accused No 1 who is the appellant before us by special leave was however rejected in limine by the High Court without giving any reasons for the rejection
There is a whole catena of cases which have come up here from the Bombay High Court in which this Court has consistently disapproved of the practice followed by the Bombay High Court of not giving reasons when exercising its power of summary dismissal of criminal s appeals which lie both on questions of fact and law
In other High Courts such appeals are automatically admitted
In any case it is not possible for this Court to exercise its powers satisfactorily without giving an appellant who may have an arguable case an opportunity of first presenting his case to the High Court and getting a decision from it
The power of a summary rejection of a criminal 1st appeal even though it is exercisable under the provisions of Section 421 Criminal Procedure Code should in our opinion be only exercised when the Court is satisfied from a perusal of the judgment as well as the record that there is absolutely no reasonable possibility of its success for the reasons mentioned in the order
In a case such as the one now before us it cannot be said that there are no such arguable points that after the High Court had an opportunity of fully considering both sides of the case it must necessarily dismiss the appeal
At least in such cases where there are arguable points the High Court should give its grounds and reasons in support of its decision to reject summarily on some absolutely clinching ground
This Court has laid down the duty upon the High Court to record reasons
See Mushtak Hussein vs The State of Bombay 13 Krishna Vithu Surosha vs State of Maharashtra 2 Mustaq Ahmed Mohmed Hussain  Anr
vs The State of Gujarat3 Kapurchand Kesrimal Jain vs The State of Maharashtra4 
It is difficult to believe that judgments of this Court have neither come to the knowledge of the Bombay High Court nor were cited on behalf of the appellant
In any case the law having been declared by this Court it is the duty of the Bombay High Court to act in accord 1 2  3  4 689 ance with Article 141 of the Constitution and to apply it by giving proper reasons to justify whatever be its view
Accordingly we allow the appeal and set aside the order of the High Court rejecting the appeal summarily and order that the case will be treated as admitted for regular hearing of both sides by the Bombay High Court and disposed of in accordance with the law
 PHP Appeal allowed


Summary:
The appellant an owner of a hotel was prosecuted along with five others for forcibly dispossessing the complainant who was the Manager of the Hotel and further for misappropriating certain properties including some money belonging to the complainant
According to the appellant the complainant was merely a licensee
The Trial Court acquitted accused Nos 3 to 6 and convicted accused No 1 and 2
The High Court admitted the appeal of accused No 2 and acquitted him
The appeal of the appellant accused No 1 was however rejected by the High Court it limine without giving any reasons for the rejection
On an appeal by Special Leave  HELD 1
There is a whole catena of cases which have come up to this Court from the Bombay High Court in which this Court has consistently disapproved of the practice followed by the Bombay High Court of not giving reasons when exercising its power of summary dismissal of criminal appeals which lie both on questions of fact and law
In other High Courts such appeals are automatically admitted
The power of summary rejection under section 421 of the Criminal Procedure Code should be only exercised when the Court is satisfied from a perusal of the judgment as well as the record that there is absolutely no reasonable possibility of its success for reasons to be mentioned in the order of dismissal
In the present case it cannot be said that there are no arguable points
It is difficult to believe that the judgments of this court have neither come to the knowledge of the Bombay High Court nor were cited on behalf of  the appellant In any case the law having been declared by this Court it is the duty of the Bombay High Court to act in accordance with Article 141 of the constitution and to apply it by giving proper reasons to justify whatever be its view
The judgment of the Bombay High Court was set aside and it was directed that the case should be treated as admitted for regular hearing in she Bombay High Court and should be disposed of in accordance with law
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