IMPORTANT POINT
In a revisional jurisdiction against judgment of acquittal, High Court does not have the power to re-appreciate the evidence.

ORDER

Leave granted.

2. This appeal is filed against the judgment and order dated 18th July, 2001 passed by the High Court of Kerala in Crl.R.P. No. 62 of 1994 allowing the revision application filed by PW1 de facto complainant.

3. In the present case, the principal assistant sessions judge, Thiruvananthapuram by his judgment and order dated 18th January, 1992, convicted accused Nos. 1 to 11 and sentenced them for the offences under sections 143, 147, 148 and 307 read with section 149 IPC. The sessions judge, Thiruvananthapuram, after appreciating the evidence allowed the criminal appeal No.24 of 1992 and acquitted the accused for the offences for which they were charged. In revision application filed by PW1-de facto complainant, the High Court set aside the order of sessions judge. Hence, this appeal.

4. Mr. U.R. Lalit, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the appellants submitted that the order passed by the High Court is, on the face of it, illegal and erroneous as the High Court has exceeded its revisional jurisdiction conferred under section 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is his submission that it is well settled law that High Court can exercise/invoke its revisional jurisdiction only in exceptional cases, where there is manifest illegality or gross miscarriage of justice. For this purpose, he relied upon various judgments. It is his contention that in the present case the High Court has only re-appreciated the evidence and arrived at the conclusion that it is not a fit case for acquitting the accused. For this purpose, the High Court mainly relied upon the evidence of the injured witness. No doubt, finally the High Court remitted the matter to the trial court for deciding the case afresh. But it is his submission that the appreciation of evidence was without jurisdiction as there was no manifest illegality nor there was any glaring defect in the procedure followed by the trial court.

5. As against this, learned counsel for respondent No. 1 - victim submitted that for one or the other reason, if the state government does not prefer appeal in such serious cases, the High Court has ample jurisdiction to interfere with the judgment and order passed by the appellant court. It is his submission that for exercise of revisional jurisdiction there is no limitation.

6. In a revision application filed by the de facto complainant against the acquittal order, the court s jurisdiction under section 397 read with section 401 of the Cr.P.C. is limited. The law on the subject is well settled. Instead of referring to various judgments, we would only refer to few decisions rendered by this Court. In Akalu Ahir and Others v. Ramdeo Ram (1973) 2 SCC 583], this Court has (in para 8) observed thus :

"This Court however, by way of illustration, indicated the following categories of cases which would justify the High Court in interfering with a finding of acquittal in revision:

(i) Where the trial court has no jurisdiction to try the case, but has still acquitted the accused;

(ii) Where the trial court has wrongly, shut out evidence which the prosecution wished to produce;

(iii) Where the appellate court has wrongly held the evidence which was admitted by the trial court to be inadmissible;

(iv) Where the material evidence has been overlooked only (either) by the trial court or by the appellate court; and

(v) Where the acquittal is based on the compounding of the offence which is invalid under the law.

These categories were, however, merely illustrative and it was clarified that other cases of similar nature can also be properly held to be of exceptional nature where the High Court can justifiably interfere with the order of the acquittal."

The Court further observed:

"No doubt, the appraisal of evidence by the trial judge in the case in hand is not perfect or free from flaw and a court of appeal may well have felt justified in disagreeing with its con