LAWS(SC)-1975-7-19

PAKALAPATI NARAYANA GAJAPATHI RAJU Vs. BONAPALLI PEDA APPADU

Decided On July 25, 1975
PAKALAPATI NARAYANA GAJAPATHI RAJU Appellant
V/S
BONAPALLI PEDA APPADU Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The narrow question for consideration in this appeal by special leave is whether in the exercise of its revisional powers under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh was justified in ordering a re-trial of the appellants. The revision application before the High Court was filed by a private party in a case which was not instituted upon a complaint.

(2.) It is alleged that on the night of June 26, 1972 the appellants committed the murder of one Tata and caused grievous injuries to seven others. The Learned First Addl. Sessions Judge, Visakhapatnanam, acquitted the appellants of all the charges levelled against them. As against the order of acquittal Peda Appadu, a brother of the deceased filed a revision application in the High Court. Taking the view that the learned Sessions Judge had wholly overlooked the evidence of P. Ws. 5, 7, 8 and 12 to 15 and that he had wrongly treated the First Information Report as a piece of substantive evidence in the case, the High Court set aside the acquittal and directed a retrial of the appellants.

(3.) Section 439 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that in exercise of revisional jurisdiction, the High Court may exercise any of the powers conferred on a court of appeal. This provision is made expressly subject to sub-section (4) of Section 439 under which nothing contained in the section shall be deemed to authorise a High Court to convert a finding of acquittal into one of conviction. Section 439 has been interpreted in several decisions of this Court which have taken the view that the revisional jurisdiction, when invoked by a private complainant against an order of acquittal, ought not to be exercised lightly and that it can be exercised only in exceptional cases where the interests of public justice require interference for the correction of a manifest illegality or the prevention of a gross miscarriage of justice. (See Satyendra Nath Dutta v. Ram Narain, (1975) 3 SCC 398 = (AIR 1975 SC 580 = 1975 Cri.LJ 577), Akalu Ahir v. Ramdeo Ram, (1974) 1 SCR 130, Changanti Kotaiah v. Goginoni Venkateshwara Rao. (1973) 3 SCR 867. It is clear from these decisions that the revisional jurisdiction cannot be invoked merely because the lower court has not appreciated the evidence properly. The High Court has in its judgment referred to the decisions of this Court but in applying those decisions it has transgressed the limits of its revisional powers.