P. Velusamy Gounder vs Ramakrishnan, A. Sivankalai and The State

S. Ashok Kumar, J.—This revision petition is filed against the acquittal of the accused, who were charged for the offence under Sections

409, 468, 471 and 477A I.P.C. Earlier, the accused were tried by the learned Judicial Magistrate, Kodumudi in C.C.No.5 of 1998 and were

convicted for the offence u/s 409 I.P.C to undergo Rigourous Imprisonment for 2 years and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- in default to undergo 6

months R.I., for the offence u/s 468 I.P.C to undergo R.I. for 2 years and to pay a fine of Rs.500/- in default to undergo 6 months R.1., for the

offence u/s 471 I.P.C one year R.1. and to pay a fine of Rs.500/- in default to undergo three months R.I., for the offence u/s 477-A to undergo

R.I. for 2 years and pay a fine of Rs.500/- in default to undergo 6 months R.I. Aggrieved over the same, they preferred an appeal in Crl.A.No.2 of

2004 before the learned First Additional Sessions Judge, Erode. Learned First Additional sessions Judge, Erode, who heard the appeal allowed

the same and acquitted the accused and directed to refund the fine paid by the accused.

Aggrieved over the acquittal of the accused this revision petition is filed by P.W.8.

Before going into the merits of the case, we have to go into the maintainability of this revision. P.W.8 claims to be trustee of the temple for which

there is no material and that was also not accepted by the trial Court and also by the First Appellate Court. Therefore, P.W.8 is only a third party

who is not a directly affected party or an aggrieved person.

In Bindeshwari Prasad Singh @ B.P. Singh and Others Vs. State of Bihar (Now Jharkhand) and Another, , the Hon''ble Supreme Court held

that

We have carefully considered the material on record and we are satisfied that the High Court was not justified in reappreciating the evidence

on record and coming to a different conclusion in a revision preferred by the information u/s 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Sub Section

(3) of Section 401 in terms provides that nothing in Section 401 shall be deemed to authorise a High Court to convert a finding of acquittal into one

of conviction. The aforesaid sub section, which places a limitation on the powers of the revisional court, prohibiting it from convert a finding of

acquittal into one of conviction, is itself indicative of the nature and extent of the revisional power conferred by Section 401 of the Code of

Criminal Procedure, if the High Court could not concert a finding of acquittal into one of the conviction directly, it could not do so indirectly by the

method of ordering a retrial. It is well settled by a catena of decisions of this Court that the High Court will ordinarily not interfere in revision with

an order of acquittal except in exceptional cases where the interest of public justice requires interference for the correction of a manifest illegality or

the prevention of gross miscarriage of justice. The High Court will not be justified in interfering with an order of acquittal merely because the trial

court has taken a wrong view of the law or has erred in appreciation of evidence. It is neither possible nor advisable to make an exhaustive list of

circumstances in which exercise of revisional jurisdiction may be justified, but decision of this court have laid down the parameters of exercise of

revisional jurisdiction by the High Court u/s 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in an appeal against acquittal by a private party. (See D.

Stephens Vs. Nosibolla, ; K. Chinnaswamy Reddy Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, ; Akalu Ahir and Others Vs. Ramdeo Ram, : Pakalapati

Narayana Gajapathi Raju and Others Vs. Bonapalli Peda Appadu and Another, and Mahendra Pratap Singh Vs. Sarju Singh and Another, .

In Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (Delhi) Vs. Central Bureau of Investigation, , the Delhi High Court held that,

Irrespective of the reference to aforesaid commentaries cited by Mr. Bhatia I find that in addition to the above discussion a reference to

various ruling including Thakur Ram Vs. The State of Bihar, ; Simranjit Singh Mann Vs. Union of India and another, ; Janata Dal Vs. H.S.

Chowdhary and Others, ; All India Institute of Medical Sciences Employees'' Union (Regd.) through its President Vs. Union of India (UOI) and

Others, : Praveen Malhotra Vs. State, and para 90 of Sheonandan Paswan Vs. State of Bihar and Others, would lead to the conclusion that the

state is the master of prosecutions and that it would be extremely unsafe to accord locus standi to a third party to file a Criminal Revision Petition

against judicial orders. It will be unwise and unsafe to entertain Criminal Revision Petition by third parties. The petitioner is neither the complainant

nor aggrieved party. As such, I hold that the petitioner has no locus standi to file the present Criminal Revision Petition.

In view of the above decisions of the Supreme Court, P.W.8 could be only reated as a third party. Though he is a prosecution witness, he is not

a directly affected person. The case is not initiated on a private complaint but by the police i.e., the State. Therefore, this Criminal revision filed by

P.W.8 who is the revision petitioner, has no locus standi to file this revision petition and The same is to be dismissed on the ground of

maintainability.