Criminal Revision No.693 of 2000 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Criminal Revision No.693 of 2000 Date of Decision 19.03.2010 Makhan Singh ...... Appellant(s) VERSUS Labh Singh and another ...... Respondent(s) CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.N.JINDAL Present: Mr.A.P.S.Deol, Senior Advocate with Mr.Daldeep Singh, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Amit Dhawan, Advocate, for the respondents. ***** A.N.JINDAL, J(ORAL): This revision petition has arisen out of the judgment of acquittal dated 17.02.2000, passed by Addl. Sessions Judge, Bathinda, acquitting the respondents-accused of the charges under Section 324, 326 read with Section 34 IPC while reversing the judgment of conviction 28.01.1993, passed by Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Bathinda. The occurrence had taken place between the complainant Makhan Singh on one side and Labh Singh, Bhola Singh and Gandhi Singh on the other side in which both the parties had suffered the injuries, consequently, cross FIR No.4 dated 03.01.1985 was registered at Police Station Raman. On completion of investigation, the reports under Section 173 Cr.P.C. against both the parties were filed. In the present case, the accused-respondents (herein referred as 'the accused') were charged, tried and ultimately convicted and sentenced Criminal Revision No.693 of 2000 2 accordingly. However, during appeal, they were acquitted of the charges framed against them. The main stake of argument as developed by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that since complainant Makhan Singh, who was challaned in another case, was acquitted on the ground that the accused of the present case were aggressors, therefore, the Appellate Court fell in error while acquitting them of the charges and case deserves to be remanded for fresh consideration. In this regard, it is observed that at the time of hearing the appeal, the prosecution did not bring to the notice of the Court regarding the judgment passed against Makhan Singh and the said judgment was not made part of the record as a piece of evidence to be used against the appellants. At the same time, the said judgment could not be made the basis for convicting the accused as the evidence or the observations made in a cross case or another criminal case could not be read into evidence in the instant case. Secondly, the Appellate Court observed that the trial Court fell in error while placing reliance on the cross version while deciding the trial against the respondents which is not permissible. In this regard, reference was made to the Supreme Court judgment delivered in case Mitthulal and another versus The State of Madhya Pradesh AIR 1975 Supreme Court 149 in which it was observed as under:- “This was clearly impermissible to the High Court. It is difficult to comprehend as to how the High Court could decide the appeal before it by taking into account evidence recorded in another case even though it might be what is loosely called a cross-case. It is elementary that each case must be decided on the evidence recorded in it and evidence recorded in another Criminal Revision No.693 of 2000 3 case cannot be taken into account in arriving at the decision. Even in civil cases, this cannot be done unless the parties are agreed that the evidence in one case may be treated as evidence in the other. Much more, so in criminal cases, “would this be impermissible?”. It is doubtful whether the evidence recorded in one criminal case can be treated as evidence in the other, even with the consent of the accused. But here there was clearly no consent of the appellants to treat the evidence recorded in the cross-case against Ganpat and Rajdhar as evidence in the case against them. The High Court was, therefore, clearly in error in taking into consideration the evidence recorded in the cross-case against Ganpat and Rajdhar. The High Court ought to have decided the appeal before it only on the basis of the evidence recorded in the present case and ought not to have allowed itself to be influenced by the evidence recorded in the cross-case against Ganpat and Rajdhar. It is regrettable that the High Court should have fallen into such an obvious error. The judgment of the High Court must, therefore, be set aside and we must proceed to consider whether, on the evidence recorded in the present case-without looking into the evidence recorded in the other cross-case – the conviction and sentence recorded against the appellants can be sustained.” The matter does not end here. In the impugned judgment, the Appellate Court decided the appeal on the basis of evidence led by the prosecution while holding that the evidence of complainant was not reliable Criminal Revision No.693 of 2000 4 and the same is contradictory to the medical evidence and the statement of complainant is also contradicted by the evidence of the Investigating Officer ASI Gurdeep Singh. Thus, the Appellate Court could not be said to have fallen in error in any manner while acquitting the respondents. The impugned judgment does not in any manner suffer from any illegality, arbitrariness or perversity. In a revision petition against the acquittal, the powers of the High Court are very limited in nature and the interference could not be made merely on the ground that the two views could be formed. It is also well settled by now that if the two views are possible, the view favourable to the accused could be accepted. Resultantly, finding no merit in the revision petitin, the same is dismissed. (A.N.Jindal) Judge 19.03.2010 mamta-II