BIBEKANANDA DAS Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The core question for consideration in this petition filed under Section 482, Cr. P.C. is whether this Court has power to review its own judgment. To appreciate the law involved it is necessary to make a brief reference to the facts giving rise to the present case.

(2.) The petitioner along with others stood convicted for the offence under Rule 21 of the Orissa Timber and other Forest Produce Transit Rules, 1980 and sentenced do suffer rigorous imprisonment for three months by the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Karanjia. Being aggrieved, they carried appeal to the learned Sessions Judge, Mayurbhanj, Baripada which ultimately ended in dismissal. Thereafter they approached this Court in Criminal Revision No. 170 of 1992 which came to be heard by S. K. Mohanty, J. who upon hearing the parties and on perusal of the evidence available on record, concerned with the ultimate conclusion and findings recorded by both the Courts below and dismissal the revision. By filing the present petition under Section 482, Cr. P.C. the petitioner has urged that it was obligatory on the Court to apply Section 4 of the Probation of Offenders Act to the facts and circumstances of the case and give benefit thereof and release him on probation and that having not been done, for the interest of justice the Court in exercise of its inherent power should review that party of the judgment confirming the sentence and release him under Section 4 of the aforesaid Act.

(3.) Opposing the said prayer it was urged on behalf of the State that once the Court delivered judgement it becomes functus officio and therefore, cannot review its judgment in view of the bar created by Section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, 'the Code').