An appellate court must not reverse an order of acquittal unless there are substantial and compelling reasons, or the original judgment is perverse. Retrial is an exceptional remedy permitted only to prevent a failure of justice when the original trial was vitiated by serious illegality or lacked jurisdiction.

JUDGMENT :

SANJAY KUMAR MEDHI, J.

1. The appeal has been preferred under Section 372 of the Cr.PC against the judgment and order dated 31.08.2017 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Morigaon in Sessions Case No. 30 of 2013 acquitting the accused persons of the offence under Section 341/302/325/34 IPC.

2. Before going to the aspect of adjudicating an appeal against an order of acquittal, it is required to keep in mind the principles which are to be followed in such adjudication process. The principles are judicially evolved in a catena of judgments and one of the landmark case was rendered by the Hon’ble Privy Council in the case of Sheo Swarup vs. King-Emperor , AIR 1934 PC 227, wherein the following principles were laid down:

“Sects. 417, 418 and 423 of the Code give to the High Court full power to review at large the evidence upon which the order of acquittal was founded, and to reach the conclusion that upon that evidence the order of acquittal should be reversed. No limitation should be placed upon that power, unless it be found expressly stated in the Code. But in exercising the power conferred by the Code and before reaching its conclusions upon fact, the High Court should and will always give proper weight and consideration to such matters as (1) the views of the trial judge as to the credibility of the witnesses; (2) the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused, a presumption certainly not weakened by the fact that he has been acquitted at his trial; (3) the right of the accused to the benefit of any doubt and (4) the slowness of an appellate Court in disturbing a finding of fact arrived at by a judge who had the advantage of seeing the witnesses. To state this, however, is only to say that the High Court in its conduct of the appeal should and will act in accordance with rules and principles well known and recognized in the administration of justice.”

3. The aforesaid principles have been followed and reiterated in a catena of judgments by the Hon’ble Supreme Court including the case of Ghurey Lal Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh , (2008) 10 SCC 450, the relevant observations being extracted herein below:

“3. We have endeavoured to set out the guidelines for the appellate courts in dealing with appeals against acquittal. An overriding theme emanates from the law on appeals against acquittals. The appellate court is given wide powers to review the evidence to come to its own conclusions. But this power must be exercised with great care and caution. In order to ensure that the innocents are not punished, the appellate court should attach due weight to the lower court's acquittal because the presumption of innocence is further strengthened by the acquittal. The appellate court should, therefore, reverse an acquittal only when it has "very substantial and compelling reasons."

73. On marshalling the entire evidence and the documents on record, the view taken by the trial court is certainly a possible and plausible view. The settled legal position as explained above is that if the trial court’s view is possible and plausible, the High Court should not substitute the same by its own possible views. The difference in treatment of the case by two courts below is particularly noticeable in the manner in which they have dealt with the prosecution evidence. While the trial court took great pain in discussing all important material aspects and to record its opinion on every material and relevant point, the learned Judges of the High Court have reversed the judgment