P S R SADHANANTHAM Vs. ARUNACHALAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Is it constitutionally valid or desirable on principle to permit a private citizen, who has but loose nexus with the victim of a crime, to invoke the special power under Art. 136 of the Constitution for leave to appeal against an acquittal of the alleged criminal thereby putting in peril his life or liberty in the absence of any legislative provision arming such officious outsider with the right to appeal This issue, profound on its face but unsound on reflection, falls for decision in this writ petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution. The facts compressed into a single sentence, are that the petitioner was acquitted of a murder charge by the High Court in appeal but the brother of the deceased - not the State nor even the first informant - moved this Court under Art. 136, got leave and had his appeal heard which resulted in the petitioner (accused) being convicted and sentenced to life term under S.302, I.P.C. The present contention urged, to upset that conviction, is that the leave to appeal and the subsequent proceedings were unconstitutional as violative of Article 21 - the procedural magna carts protective of life and liberty - and, therefore, the sentence must fail. This plea, faintly presented before this Court when the appeal was heard, was briefly considered and rightly rejected. This second battle, doomed to fail like the first, demands of us a condensed ratiocination in negation of the contention hopefully urged by Sri Mridul, counsel for the petitioner.

(2.) Two interlaced issues arise and they turn on (a) the content and character of Article 136 vis a vis Art. 21, and (b) the locus use that expression to refer to a public-spirited citizen seeking to trigger the legal process to see that justice is done to his neighbour.

(3.) Article 21, in its sublime brevity, guardians human liberty by insisting on the prescription of procedure established by law, not flat as sine qua non for deprivation of personal freedom. And those procedures so established must be fair, not fanciful, nor formal nor flimsy, as laid down in Maneka Gandhi's case, (1978) 1 SCC 248. So, it is axiomatic that our constitutional jurisprudence mandates the States not to deprive a person of his personal liberty without adherence to fair procedure laid down by law. The question is whether there is any procedure, fair or otherwise, which enables a kindly neighbour who is not a complainant or first informant, to appeal to the Supreme Court against an allegedly erroneous acquittal by the High Court. The corpus juris contains no black-letter law arming any such purely compassionate soul to approach this Court, argues Sri Mridul; and so, his client's liberty has been deprived by a proceeding initiated by someone without any procedure established by law. We see the dexterity in the advocacy but reject its efficacy. Nor are we impressed with the submission that the brother of the deceased in the case of any other high-minded citizen, is an officious meddler who has no business nor grievance when the commission of grievous crime is going unpunished. There is a spiritual sensitivity for our criminal justice system which approves of the view that a wrong done to anyone is a wrong done to oneself, although for pragmatic considerations the law leashes the right to initiate proceedings in some situations. Again, justice is functionally outraged not only when an innocent person is punished but also when a guilty criminal gets away with it stultifying the legal system. The deep concern of the law is to track down, try and punish the culprit, and if found not guilty, to acquit the accused.