RANVIR SINGH Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application by the complainant under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure for re-calling my order dated 8-5-79 passed in Criminal Revision No. 1480 of 1977.

(2.) The complainant (hereinafter referred to as the applicant) filed a complaint against opposite-parties under Section 379 IPC mentioning therein that he had raised Gehun and Lehsun crop in plots Nos. 216 and 220 in village Sirsa and the opposite parties dishonestly and wrongfully cut the same and removed it to their house. The opposite-parties denied the charge made against them. The trial court held that the opposite parties had committed theft of the Gehun and Lehsun crop belonging to the applicant and it, therefore, convicted them under Section 379 IPC and sentenced them to three months' R. I. each and a fine of Rs. 150/-. Aggrieved they went up in appeal, but in vain. They then came up in revision (Criminal Revision No. 1480 of 1977) to this Court, and at the time of hearing assailed the correctness of the orders passed by the courts below. I heard this revision on 8 -5-79 and allowed it. While allowing the revision I remarked that a bona fide dispute in regard to the ownership of plots Nos. 216 and 220 had been going on between the parties and each side claimed to be in possession of these plots to the exclusion of the other. And it was in this background that the opposite-parties had cut the Gehun and Lehsun crop standing on plots Nos. 216 and 220. My view was that as the opposite parties had cut the Gehun and Lehsun crop in assertion of a contested claim of right, they cannot be said to have committed theft of the same when they cut it and removed it to their house.

(3.) The applicant has now filed the present application for recalling my order dated 8-5-79 on the ground that no opportunity of being heard was given to him in revision and as such this order stood vitiated. It is true that no notice of the hearing of this revision was given to the applicant, but, in my opinion, it was not necessary to do so under law. No provision in the Code of Criminal Procedure has been shown to me under which a notice to the complainant is to be given in a revision arising out of a case instituted upon a complaint. In the case of an appeal such a provision exists. Section 385 Code of Criminal Procedure says that if an appeal against conviction arising out of a case instituted upon complaint has been admitted for hearing, then a notice about it has to be given to the complainant. The provision about giving notice of the hearing of an appeal of this kind is mandatory and cannot be waived. No such corresponding provision exists in regard to the hearing of a revision arising out of a case instituted upon a complaint. Had the legislature intended that in revisions also notice of hearing must be given to the complainant, it would certainly have made a provision like the one that it made in regard to the hearing of appeals. The fact that the legislature made no provision for giving notice of hearing to the complainant in a revision shows that it never intended that notice for its hearing should be given to him.