The Sessions Court has the power to entertain a revision application against the order of acquittal passed by the Judicial Magistrate.

JUDGMENT - SHARAD MANOHAR, J.:---Under the circumstances which I will presently mention it has been necessary for me to transfer this revision application to the Session Court, Aurangabad. Hence I will state the facts which are relevant only for pointing out the circumstances which necessitates such an order.

2. The petitioner before me is the original complainant at whose instance the police filed charge-sheet against present respondent No. 1 (who will be referred to hereinafter as "the accused") for offence under section 406 of the I.P.C. for alleged commission of misappropriation in respect of a truck belonging allegedly to the complainant. In the proceedings that ensued the trial Court has passed an order of acquittal in favour of the accused and so far as the truck is concerned it is directed that the same should be returned to the accused.

3. So far as a part of the order which related to the return of the truck to the accused is concerned the present petitioner has filed an appeal to the Sessions Court. Even the State has filed an appeal against the same part of the order. Both the appeals are pending before the Session Court. So far as the order of acquittal of the accused is concerned, the State Government has not filed any appeal against the said order to this Court; but the present petitioner had initially filed an appeal against the same to this Court. Evidently the said appeal did not lie at the instance of the de facto complainant because the criminal proceedings had not been institutes upon a 'complaint' within the meaning of the Code. This Court, therefore, allowed the present petitioner to convert the appeal into a revision application and that is how the same came up for final hearing before me.

But what is to be noted is that the fact that the above mentioned two appeals against a part of the same order of the trial Court are pending in the Session Court, was brought to the notice of this court only at the time when the appeal came up for final hearing before me. The arguments from all the advocated appearing before me including the Public Prosecutors is that the Session Court has no power to entertain not only the appeal against acquittal but also the revision application against the order of acquittal. I noticed that---

(a) this plea has no foundation in any of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code.

(b) In the instance case it would be conducive to convenience of all sides that the present revision application should be heard by the Session Court alongwith the above mention two appeals pending in the Session Court.

I, therefore called upon all the advocates to point out as to why the Sessions Court had no power to entertain the revision application against the order of acquittal passed by the Judicial Magistrate.

4. All the Advocates appearing before me now state that there is no provision under the Criminal Procedure Code restricting the Sessions Court's revisional jurisdiction to orders of conviction only and all of them fairly concede that though the Session Court has no power to entertain the appeal against acquittal as such passed by any Judicial Magistrate, section 397 of the Criminal Procedure Code is in no way restricted to entertaining revision applications against orders of convictions only.

5. In this connection it is worthwhile referring to the provisions of section 397 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Under the said section it will be seen that the revisional power of Sessions Court is co-extensive with that of the High Court. It is not dispute and in fact it cannot be disputed that this Court gets the power to revise the order of acquittal passed by the trial Court only under section 395. If the power given to the High Court under said section 395, therefore, extends to revising the order of acquittal passed by the trial Court and if the revisional power of the Sessions Court under section 397 is co-extensive with that of the High Court, it follows that the Sessions Court has as mush

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