The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for exceptional cases to interfere with an order of acquittal, the prohibition on converting a finding of acquittal into one of conviction, and the need for a manifest error of law or procedure leading to a flagrant miscarriage of justice.

ORDER :

Sanjay K. Agrawal, J.

1. This criminal revision is directed against the impugned order of acquittal dated 29.4.2009 by which the learned First Additional Sessions Judge, Mahasamund in Sessions Trial No.3/2009 has acquitted respondents No.2 to 5 herein from the charge under Sections 302/34 and 323/34 of the IPC.

2. Learned counsel for the applicant would submit that the learned trial Court has committed grave legal error in acquitting respondents No.2 to 5 herein from charge under Sections 302/34 and 323/34 of the IPC by committing manifest error of law as the material available on record has been overlooked by the trial Court and respondents No.2 to 5 herein have been acquitted. Therefore, in the light of judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of Joseph Stephen and others v. Santhanasamy and others, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 90, criminal revision deserves to be allowed and the matter be remitted to the trial Court for retrial after setting aside the order of acquittal.

3. On the other hand, Mr.Ravindra Sharma, learned counsel for respondents No.2, 3 and 5, would submit that the trial Court has rightly recorded the finding that death of deceased Neelambar was not homicidal in nature and furthermore, the trial Court has disbelieved the statements of injured witness Sevaram (PW-8), his son Koushal (PW-9) and Grahan (PW-10) as they are relative witnesses and in view of exaggeration in their statements recorded before the Court, therefore, this Court in criminal revision should not reappreciate the material available on record as there is no manifest error of law in the order of acquittal. He would rely upon the judgments of the Supreme Court in the matters of Bindeshwari Prasad Singh alias B.P. Singh and others v. State of Bihar (Now Jharkhand) and another, AIR 2002 SC 2907 and Sheetala Prasad and others v. Sri Kant and another, (2010) 2 SCC 190.

4. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and considered their rival submissions made herein-above and also went through the record with utmost circumspection.

5. The trial Court while acquitting the private respondents has recorded the following findings:-

(i) That, injury suffered by Neelambar could have been caused by falling on the ground, seized article has not been examined by Dr.J.P.Pradhan (PW-3) and death of deceased Neelambar has not been proved to be homicidal in nature.

(ii) That, the statement of Sevaram (PW-8) (father of the deceased), who is also injured witness, is shaky and does not inspire confidence and furthermore, statements of other witnesses Koushal (PW-9) and Grahan (PW-10) do not inspire confidence and they have tried to falsely implicate the private respondents herein.

6. At this stage, it would be appropriate to consider the scope of revisional jurisdiction by this Court.

7. The Supreme Court in the matter of K. Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh and another, AIR 1962 SC 1788 has laid down the scope of interference in the order of acquittal and held that in exceptional case, revisional jurisdiction has to be exercised by holding as under:-

“7. It is true that it is open to a High Court in revision to set aside an order of acquittal even at the instance of private parties, though the State may not have thought fit to appeal; but this jurisdiction should in our opinion be exercised by the High Court only in exceptional cases, when there is some glaring defect in the procedure or there is a manifest error on a point of law and consequently there has been a flagrant miscarriage of justice. Sub-section (4) of S. 439 forbids a High Court from converting a finding of acquittal into one of conviction and that makes it all the more incumbent on the High Court to see that it does not convert the finding of acquittal into one of conviction by the indirect method of ordering retrial, when it cannot itself directly convert a finding of acquittal into a finding of conviction. This places limitations on the power of the High Court to set aside a finding of acquitt