IN RE: ESAKKI THEVAR AND ORS. Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a Revision Petition by the five accused in a criminal case, who were originally convicted by the learned District Magistrate of Tirunelveli under Sections 147, 148,149and 326 of the Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to several periods of imprisonment. This matter was taken up in appeal to the learned Additional Sessions Judge of Tirunelveli, who considered the facts of evidence in his appellate judgment and confirmed the convictions and sentences.

(2.) AT the outset itself, when these proceedings in revision were argued, the limits of the propriety of interference in criminal revision by the High Court in a case of this kind, where there are concurrent findings of fact by two Courts below, were canvassed as I felt that it was essential that this should be clarified. The matter has now been argued at some length by learned Counsel for the revision petitioners, and also the learned Public Prosecutor, with reference to the available authorities, both of the Madras High Court, other High Courts and the Supreme Court. It is not necessary for the purpose of the present judgment to make an exhaustive review of the case -law cited before me. But certain of the decisions have necessarily to be referred to, at the outset, itself, so that the broad landmarks of the applicable principle may be illustrated.

(3.) NOW , coming to the facts of the present case, I have been taken through the record of evidence, and the judgment of the two Courts below. I desire to say very little upon the broad aspects of this offence which undoubtedly did occur, as a result of faction and ill -will, and during the course of which the complainant (P.W. 1) sustained certain punctured and incised wounds, as shown by the medical evidence. A certain difficulty in this case is that the first information was a bald oral report furnished by the son of the complainant, who has not been examined, to the effect that A -1 and other assailants caused injuries to his father (P.W. 1). In that view, the learned Additional Sessions Judge in appeal rightly excluded the subsequent recorded first information report (P -1) from consideration, as within the mischief of Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Another difficulty in the present case is that A -4 also sustained some injuries, and that he furnished a counter version of this incident (P -8), though belatedly.