KISHAN SWAROOP Vs. GOVERNMENT OF NCT OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted. Heard the learned counsel for the parties.

(2.) On a report lodged by the appellant with the Sadar Bazar Police Station, Delhi a case was registered against three persons. After police submitted chargesheet (challan) against them they stood their trial for offences punishable under Sections 381 and 411 of the Indian Penal Code. The trial ultimately ended in their acquittal and aggrieved thereby the appellant filed a revision petition in the Delhi High Court. At the time of hearing of the petition the High Court posed the question whether the appellant was required to obtain permission from the Public Prosecutor to file such a petition and relying upon the judgment of this Court in K. Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1962 SC 1788 and some judgments of High Courts, it answered the same in the affirmative and dismissed the revision petition without prejudice to the appellant's right to approach it afresh after obtaining the requisite permission. The above order is under challenge in this appeal.

(3.) From the impugned judgment we find that the High Court has referred to the provisions of Sections 378 and 210 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to conclude that it was the primary responsibility of the State to file appeal/revision and therefore no criminal revision in respect of an order which is appealable at the instance of the State could/should be entertained without the requisite permission of the Public Prosecutor. In drawing the above inference the High Court failed to notice that if the Code of Criminal Procedure did not empower a private party to file a revision petition against an order of acquittal passed in a case instituted on a police report a formal permission of the Public Prosecutor would not entitle him to do so. To put it differently, a Public Prosecutor cannot vest a private party with a right which it has not got under the Code.