STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. BABUBHAI SHANKARBHAI SOLANKI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE State has preferred this revision application under section 397 of Cr. P. C. to challenge the order dated 07. 04. 2005 below ex. 42 in Sessions Case No. 18 of 2004 whereby the application for joining as accused one person under section 319 of cr. P. C. was rejected. Even after clear evidence of the victim himself implicating the known accused person in serious offence, that person was not joined asaccused person and the application of the state under section 319 of Cr. P. C. was rejected by the impugned order only on the ground that the name of the person was not included in the charge-sheetafter the investigating agency verifying his alibi. Although that person, namely Haribhai mohanlal, was joined in the application for ' excise of powers under section 319 of cr. P. C. , that person is not even joined as a party in the present revision application.

(2.) THE present revision application was filed in August, 2005, after four months of the impugned order, but no application for condonation of delay was filed. Therefore, the present petition appears to have remained under office objection till December, 2005 when application for condoning delay of 21 days was made. In that application for condonation of delay, Rule was issued on 20. 01. 2006 and made returnable on 10. 2. 2006. Respondents, the other accused persons who were joined as respondents, appeared to have been served in March, 2006 and even vakalatnama on their behalf appeared to have been filed in March, 2006. But the application was somehow not heard and decided till 08. 07. 2008 when it was allowed. Thereafter, the present revision application came to be listed for admission hearing for the first time in November 2008 and it was immediately sought to have disposed as infructuous on the statement that the main criminal case in which the impugned order was made was already disposed by the trial Court. Thus, the revision application lost its meaning and purpose even before it could be heard for admission, although the impugned order was apparently illegal and palpably perverse. Learned Additional Public Prosecutor Mr. I. M. Pandya, appearing for the petitioner-State, had no explanation for such perverse pursuit of the matter at the hands of the office of learned Public Prosecutor.

(3.) IN view of the above shocking state of affairs, the record of Criminal Appeal no. 2495 of 2005 in which the judgment and order of conviction dated 30. 11. 2005 in the original Sessions Case No. 18 of 2004 was challenged were called for and learned law Secretary was requested to remain personally present. It was seen from the record of that appeal that, by the judgment dated 30. 11. 2005, accused No. l and 2 were convicted and let off with minor punishment; and even the convicted accused persons were acquitted under section 320 (8) of Cr. P. C. by compounding the offence on the basis of an amicable settlement. The fact remained that in the criminal case which was disposed on 30. 11. 2005, the present revision application before this Court was filed in August 2005 but even the application for condonation of delay was not filed till the main criminal case was concluded and the whole proceeding before this Court had become infructuous even before application for condonation of delay was filed and entertained. It may be noted here that the original criminal case, in which charge-sheet was filed after investigation, charge was framed for offences punishable under sections 395, 435 and 427 of IPC and section 135 of the Bombay Police Actand in the actual incident involving disfiguring the victim by cutting his nose with a knife, the person who was sought to be implicated had satisfied the investigating agency about his alibi on the basis of his being under treatment for fracture at the relevant time.