gf’ R’— HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR DIVISION BENCH CORAM: 'HON’BLE SHRI RAJEEV GUPTA, CJ. HON’BLE SHRI SUNIL KUNIAR SINHA, J. Criminal Revision No.02 of 2002 Shankarlai, aged about 22 years, son of late Shri Man Singh, by-occupation — LaboUrer, r/o village Potal, Police Station Malkharoda, District Janjgir Champa VERSUS RESPONDENTS 1. Hiram Gabe! aiias Hemial, aged 60 ACCUSED No.1 years, son of Shri Ram Prasad Gabe! to3 Tribhuwan, aged 36 years, son of Shri Hiram Gabel; 3 Devdati, aged 28 years, son of Shri Hiram Gabei; Responden‘ 4‘ State of Chhattisgarh through the (Prosecutor) ‘ District Magistrate, Janjgir Champa Memo of Criminal Revision Under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure; 1973 Fetitioner Who Iodqed FIR #\ Present : Shri Parag Kotecha, counsei for the petitioner. Shri Akhil Agrawal, Panel Lawyer for the State/ ‘ respondent No.4. ORDER (24m September, 2009) The following orer of the Court was passed by d Rajeev Gupta, C.J. Shri Parag ‘Kotecha, learned counsel for the petitioner is heard on admission. C} I)x 2) Petitioner/ Informant Shankarlal has fled this reVIsmn petmon against the Impugned Judgment of acquittal dated 0811 2001 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Sakti, District Bilaspur in Sessions Trial No.22/2001, whereby respondents/accused persons Hiram Gabe! @ Hemiai, Tribhuwan and Devdatt were acquitted of the charges under sections 302 and 323 read with Section 34 of i the indian Penal Code. 3) Police Maikharoda, district Janjgir Champa after compietion of the investigation of the case registered on the report of the petitioner charge-sheeted accused persons Hiram Gabe! @ Hemial, Tribhuwan and Devdatt on the accusation of their having committed murder of deceased Man Singh and caused simple hurt to petitioner Shankariai in the intervening night of 8‘“ and 9‘“ of October, 2000. 4) The accused persons abjured their guiit and pleaded false L; implication to the charges framed by the trial Court. ._V. ’ 5) At the trial, the above charges against the accused persons were sought to be proved on the evidence of PW-1 Shankarlal, PW—2 Chandrika Prasad, PW~3 lshwardeen, PW—4 Melaram, PW-5 Pushpendra Kumar Yadav, PW—6 Jethmati, ,PW—7 Dr.RP Kurre, PW—8 Kripal Singh Thakur, PW—Q Dhukram, PW—10 Lansingh, PW-11 Johitram, PW-12 Narendra Tripathi, PW-13 Dr S Chatterji, , PW—14 Ramesh Chandra and PW—15 Gajendra. ' 6)‘. Of the above-named prosecution witnesses, W-2 Chandrika P Prasad, PW-4 Melaram and PW—11 Johitram did not support the prosecution case and were declared hostile. l J l 7) The trial Court on a dose scrutiny of the entire evidence of the prosecution witnesses found that the evidence of solitary eyewitness PW-1 Shankarial suffered from serious infirmities and the evidence of PW-6 Jethmati was highly discrepant. The trial Court in view of the above infirmities in the prosecution evidence and the fact that the incident took' place in the dark hours of night found it quite unsafe to record conviction of the accused persons and therefore, passed the impugned iudgment of their acquittal. 8) Shri Parag Kotecha, learned counsel for the petitioner/ complainant relying upon dictum of the Apex Court in the case of Ram Briksh Singh And Others Vs. Ambika Yadav And Another, reported in (2004) 7 SCC — 665, vehemently argued that the trial Court has erred in recording the impugned judgment of acquittal by mis—appreciating the evidence of prosecution witnesses. Learned counsel further submitted that the eyewitness account of PW—‘l Shankarlal corroborated by the evidence of his mother PW-6 Jethmati and the medical evidence is sufficient to establish the charges against the accused persons. 9) The Apex Court while considering the scope of interference in a complainant’s revision petition against the acquittal in the case of Ram Briksh Singh And Others Vs. Ambika Yadav And V AnothertSupra) relied upon by the petitioner! complainant himself observed in paras 3 to 7 : ”3. The principles on which a revisional court can set aside a iudgment and order of acquittal passed in favour of the accused are well settled by a catena of judgments. The difficulty, however, arises at times about f prohibition. Whiie noticing that it is not possible to lay down the criteria for determiningv'exceptionai cases which would cover aii contingencies for exercise of revisional power, some cases by way of iiiustration were mentioned wherein the high Court would be justified in interfering with the finding of acquittal in revision. The High Court would be justified to interfere where material evidence is overlooked by the trial court. 7. ln a recent decision in Bindeshwari Prasad Singh v. State of Bihar (now Jharkhand) ((2002) 6 SCC 650 : 2002 SCC (Cri) 1448 noticing principles la'd down in Stephens’ and Chinnaswamy Reddy2 it was held that the High Court was not justified in reappreciating the evidence on record and coming to a different conclusion in a revision preferred by the informant under Section 401 of the Code since it was well settled that the order of acquittal cannot be interfered with in revision merely on the ground of errors in appreciation of evidence. Relying upon these decisions, Mr Mishra contends that the High Court while interfering with the judgment and order of the Court of Session has not kept in view the parameters of exercise ofrevisional jurisdiction.” 10) The incident of assault on deceased Man Singh and injured Shankarlal admittedly took place in the dark hours of night. PW—1 Shankarlal in para 9 of his cross-examination frankly admitted that on account of the darkness he could not identify those three , persons who were moving around in the‘field of the accused persons. lt has also come in evidence of PW-6 Jethmati that when she reached her field next morning, she found Shankarlal lying injured in the field who was taken by the villagers in a Jeep to the hospital and as Shankarlal was unconscious he could not talk to \ / anyone. About the author of the First Informatien Report a serious doubt is created by PW-1 Shankarlal himself by stating in paras ’13 and 17 that the First Information Report was recorded on the information given by his brother and subsequently his thumb impression was obtained by the Police on the said report in the hospital. 11)' On due consideration of the submissions of learned counsel for the petitioner; the findings recorded by the trial Court leading to the acquittal of the accused persons; the evidence ted by the prosecution at the trial in general and that of PW-1 Shankarlal and PW-6 Jethmati in particular, we are of the opinion that the infirmities pointed out by the trial Court in the impugned judgment of acquittal in the evidence of PW—1 Shankarlal and PW-6 Jethmati are very much borne out from the record. Learned counsel for the / petitioner could not point out any such piece of legat evidence which has been kept out of consideration by the trial Court. 12) Mere alleged mis—appreciation of the evidence of the prosecution witnesses by the trial Court in view of the above quoted dictum of the Apex Court in the case of Ram Briksh Singh And Others Vs. Ambik‘a Yadav And Another (Supra) will not by itseif be a sufficient ground to warrant interference in a complainant’s revision petition against the judgment of acquittal, 13) For the foregoing reasons, we do not find any scope for interference in theJmpugned judgment of acquittal. \fs 14) The revision petition fiied by the petitioner/ complainant, therefore, is liable to be dismissed and is hereby dismissed summarily. \ subbu Sd/— SUNILKUMARSINHA Sd/- Chief Justice Judge