THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE N. RAVISHANKAR CRIMINAL REVISION CASE No.1268 of 2004 ORDER: The petitioner in this revision is the de facto complainant in sessions case S.C.No.297 of 1996 on the file of the Court of the IV Additional District & Sessions Judge, Nellore (trial court). The said case arose out of Crime No.7/1995 of Kondapuram P.S. 2. Altogether thirteen (13) accused were put on trial for offences punishable under Sections 148, 447, 324, 506, 115 and 302 r/w Section 149 IPC on the allegation that all of them on 2nd February 1995 at about 8.00 AM in Renumala village committed murder of the deceased Ambuluri Laxmireddy who is the brother of t h e de facto complainant Ambuluri Ramireddy and who gave evidence as P.W.1 in the case. The incident is alleged to have occurred because of factions due to local political rivalries in the village. 3. The prosecution examined, as seen from the judgment of the trial court, thirteen (13) witnesses i.e. P.Ws.1 to 13 and exhibited 16 documents which are Exs.P.1 to P.16 and also produced material objects which are M.Os.1 to 9. On behalf of the accused D.W.1 Dr. Y.Devadas was examined and Exs.D.1 to D.7 documents were marked. The trial court after considering the matter by its judgment dated 19.04.2004 disbelieved the prosecution case and acquitted all accused of all the charges. It is questioning that judgment the de facto complainant has come up with this revision. It is brought to my notice that the State did not file any appeal questioning the acquittal. 4. It is seen that altogether nine (9) grounds are raised in the revision. All the grounds would show that the de facto complainant is assailing the acquittal recorded by the trial court on the ground that it has wrongly appreciated the evidence. Sri T.C.Krishnan the learned counsel appearing for the de facto complainant in the course of arguments also pointed out that the trial court has not appreciated the evidence properly and if it had been properly appreciated the case would not have ended in acquittal. 5. On the other hand, Sri Nimmagadda Satyanarayana the learned counsel for the accused pointed out that mere wrong appreciation of evidence or that another view is possible on evidence is no ground to interfere in a de facto complainant’s revision against acquittal and therefore the revision should fail on that ground alone. He also relied upon two decisions of the Supreme Court one given in K.Ramachandran v. V.N.Rajan[1] and the other given in Sheetala Prasad v. Sri Kant[2] and argued that the said two decisions lay down the situations in which a high court can interfere in a revision against acquittal and the present case shows that none of those situations are present here and as laid down in the said decisions this court cannot interfere merely on the ground that the appreciation of evidence by the trial court is wrong. He also argued that a perusal of the judgment of the trial court would show that it appreciated the entire evidence including the evidence of the medical officer let in by the accused and gave sufficient reasons for recording acquittal and consequently this court cannot interfere. 6. It may be noted that in the aforesaid two decisions the Supreme Court was dealing with appeals which arose out of revisions filed against acquittals. I n Sheetala Prasad’s case (2 supra) the Supreme Court clearly laid down that an acquittal can be interfered with in a revision at the instance of the de facto complainant only where (i) the trial court has wrongly shut out evidence which the prosecution wished to produce; (ii) the admissible evidence is wrongly brushed aside as inadmissible; (iii) the trial court has no jurisdiction to try the case and has still acquitted the accused; (iv) the trial court has ignored the material evidence or acquittal is recorded by considering irrelevant evidence; and (v) the acquittal is based on the compounding of the offence which is invalid in law. The above situations were laid down keeping in view Section 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Code), which deals with the power of a high court in exercising its revisional jurisdiction. More or less the above situations or principles were laid down in the first decision also. In both the decisions the rule laid down is a mere wrong appreciation of evidence is not a ground for interference in a revision and that can be looked into only in a regular appeal filed against acquittal. 7. Keeping in view the above principles or situations the contentions of Sri T.C.Krishnan have to be looked into now. It should be noted that it is not the case of the petitioner in the revision that he is relying upon situations (i), (ii), (iii) and (v) which are mentioned in Sheetala Prasad’s case (2 supra) for interference and even Sri T.C.Krishnan agreed on this aspect. However Sri Krishnan sought to rely more upon situation (iv) which deals with overlooking material evidence or considering irrelevant evidence to record an acquittal which is covered by Sheetala Prasad’s case (2 supra). 8. Sri Krishnan pointed out that though the trial court has written a judgment running into 27 pages consisting of 35 paragraphs, it has merely reproduced the prosecution case and the contentions of the counsel for accused upto para-33 and then proceeded to give its reasons in para-34 and these reasons would show that it has not considered the evidence properly and overlooked important pieces of evidence or material evidence and gave finding which are against evidence. It is difficult accept the above contention for the following reasons. 9. It may be noted that a perusal of the trial court judgment would show that it framed the point in para-6 and then from paras- 8 onwards it mentioned the contentions of the counsel for accused and also the public prosecutor and then recorded the infirmities in the evidence pointed out by the counsel for accused and made observations which show that they have in substance to be accepted. While discussing the same, it also gave its findings. Then it proceeded to record its conclusions with reasons in para- 34 having regard to the discussions which it made earlier. It gave findings or observations to the effect that the case is a faction case and it even concluded that there is no consistency in evidence with regard to place of occurrence and overt acts. What should be noted is that it has considered the entire evidence and then proceeded to record its conclusion of acquittal. 10. Sri T.C.Krishnan was unable to point out what was the material evidence that was overlooked by the trial court and what was the irrelevant evidence relied upon by it in recording the acquittal. It may be noted that this court acting in a revision cannot reverse an acquittal but can only send back the matter normally for a re-trial if that is considered necessary and a matter should never be sent back for re-appreciation of the evidence on the ground that another view is possible on evidence. Sri Krishnan however pointed out that the trial court rejected the case on the ground that no independent witness was examined by observing that all the eye witnesses being relatives were interested witnesses. It is true that the account of eye witnesses cannot be rejected merely on the ground that they are relatives but it can equally be said that the court has also the power to reject their evidence if the court comes to that conclusion on the reasons recorded by it and that is what the trial court has done in this case. 11. Nothing is brought to my notice, to repeat what is the material evidence that has been overlooked by the trial court and what is the irrelevant evidence that it has relied upon in acquitting the accused. It should also be noted that unless it is specifically shown that the findings of the trial court are not based on any evidence or that the findings are perverse the judgment cannot be interfered with merely on the ground that another view is possible. The trial court also discussed about the overt acts of the accused with reference to the weapons and injuries and also the place of occurrence and concluded that the prosecution case regarding complicity of accused does not inspire confidence. In the above circumstances if this court interferes with the matter it would only amount to interfering with the order of the trial court merely on the ground that another view is possible in the matter and that is not permissible in a revisional jurisdiction. 12. It may be noted that the State in its wisdom did not choose to prefer any appeal and if such an appeal is preferred it is clear that the whole matter would have been at large in that appeal and it would have been possible to go through the evidence once again for finding out whether the trial court’s view was correct or not on the evidence. Some comments were made about the failure of the State to file the appeal but that is outside the scope of this revision. 13. Thus to sum up, it follows that in view of the limitations laid down with regard to the scope of revisional jurisdiction in the above two decisions relied upon by the learned counsel for accused and for the reasons aforesaid, it follows that this revision should fail. It is accordingly dismissed. ________________________ N. RAVISHANKAR, J 7th February, 2012 Cvrk [1] (2009) 14 SCC 569 [2] 2010 CRI.L.J. 1404