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Judgment
V.S. Aggarwal, J.
The Jandoli Cooperative Agricultural Service Society is a registered society under the Cooperative Societies Act, 1961. The respondent was working as a CashiercumSalesman in the society. The accounts had been audited for fourfive years. It was found that there were various cuttings and entries in the accounts. Offence punishable under Sections 406/420IPC. were made out against the respondent No. 2. It was alleged that by cutting or overwriting, certain amounts were misappropriated which caused wrongfully loss to the society. In all, Rs. 28000/ were alleged to have been misappropriated which were entrusted to the respondent in the year 1982. It was further alleged that respondent cheated Gian Singh, Gurdev Singh, Dalip Singh, Sohan Singh and Lachman Singh by dishonestly inducing them to deliver Rs. 5000/, Rs. 7000/, Rs. 5800/, Rs. 7500/, Rs. 11,000/ respectively.
The learned trial Judicial Magistrate, Hoshiarpur after recording of the evidence, acquitted the respondent giving him the benefit of doubt. The relevant portion of the finding arrived at by the learned Judicial Magistrate are as under:
"If in the worst circumstances it is taken or accepted that the accused himself made the cuttings in the cashbook, then the cuttings in the ledger books which remain in the possession of the secretary PW1 cannot be expressed from the accused. Since after the termination of the accused front services and after the custody of the cashbook with the PW1 and unexplained delay in reporting the matter to police station nonauditing of the account during the tenure of the accused, the working of the PW1 beyond his date of retirement even without any extension clearly shows that the accused have been unnecessarily implicated in this false case. Further it is also important to note from evidence that despite the appropriation by the PW1 himself to the tune of Rs. 1200/ which he had deposited with the society, no action was taken against him because the president i.e. PW 4, being an illiterate person. The conduct of PW1 clearly smells out inimical attitude against the accused. Even otherwise also the matter has been decided by Arbitrator and the subjectmatter in dispute is more a civil litigation."
Aggrieved by the said order of acquittal, Jandoli Cooperative Agricultural Service Society Ltd. has filed the present revision petition.
I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as learned counsel for the respondents.
It is settled that in a revision petition filed against the order of acquittal, the High Court can only interfere if the Courts have ignored the probative value of the FIR and reliable testimony of the eye witnesses. It could further interfere if material evidence is not considered or the judgment was full of inconsistencies and consisted of faulty reasoning. Reference in this connection may be made to the decision of the Supreme Court in Akalu Ahir and others v. Ramdeo Ram, AIR 1973 SC 2145 wherein it has been held that in revision against the acquittal, normally retrial should not be ordered unless there is some infirmity rendering the trial defective. Findings were arrived at in para No. 10 which is reproduced below:
"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 conclusion, but from this it does not follow that on revision by a private complainant, the High Court is entitled to reappraise the evidence for itself as if it is acting as a Court of appeal and them order a retrial.
Similar view prevails subsequently in the case of Satyendra Nath Dutta and another v. Ram Narain, AIR 1975 SC 580. The powers of revision under Criminal Procedure Code (1988) were again considered in paragraph 16 of the judgment which reads as under:
"The High Court thus transgressed the narrow limits of its revisional jurisdiction under Section 439(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The judgment of the Sessions Court did not suffer from any manifest illegality and the interests of justice did not require the High Court to interfere with the order of acquittal passed by the Sessions Court. Any fair assessment of the evidence of the eye witnesses would show that the acquittal of the appellants led to no miscarriage of justice."
It is apparent from perusal of the precedent quoted above that even if the High Court in revision may come to any other conclusion, that will not justify interference in revision filed, except when it is concluded that there is a total miscarriage of justice, material evidence has not been considered.
In the present case in hand, though, learned counsel for the petitioner has drawn my attention towards some portion of the judgment yet certain important factors taken note of by the learned trial Court cannot be lost sight of. There was an in ordinate delay in lodging of the First Information Report and the entries in the ledger book have been made by the witness Kartar Singh PW1 and further that they were not at the hands of the respondent during the term he was working with the petitioner society. In fact, the trial Court had concluded that it appears that because of inimical conduct of the respondent, the criminal case was registered against him. On the facts of the case, it cannot be termed that the evidence has been misread or the probative value of the same ignored. Consequently, there is no ground to interfere in the present revision petition. For these reasons, the revision petition fails and is dismissed.