TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2007 (2) TMI 704
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....th-pieces, etc. The said transaction was conducted once a week in the shop of PW 8 Krishnaiah and also at Kollapuradamma Temple at Hanumanthapura. It is the case of the prosecution that on October 30, 1989, one such transaction was held at about 5.30 p.m. in which one Nagaraj, the successful bidder was given a copper vessel (Kolaga). Nagaraj returned the vessel with his maternal uncle as it was old and demanded a new vessel. But the request was refused by the proprietors of the Chit Transaction. It is further the prosecution case that at about 9.30 p.m. on the same day, i.e. October 30, 1989, near Hanumanthapura Bypass, when PW1 Veerabhadraiah along with PWs 2, 3 and 4 (Chikkanna, Rudramurthy and Puttiah) was proceeding, the Accused Nos. 1 to 8 who had formed themselves into an unlawful assembly and were armed with weapons like, knife, reapers and stones attacked PWs 2 to 4. The accused caused injuries to all the three persons. It is alleged that when the quarrel was going on and PWs 2 to 4 were injured, deceased Anjinappa came forward and intervened and went ahead to stop the quarrel. Accused No. 8 Thammaiah took out a button knife from his pocket and stabbed Anjinappa on the left....
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....ering contradictions and discrepancies in the deposition of eye witnesses, non-examination of Nagraj who was the root cause of quarrel and Krishniah, son of Obalaiah, who accompanied deceased Anjinappa to hospital, conflicting version as to injury sustained by accused No. 1 Chandrappa, presence of the deceased and injured witnesses at the Hanumanthapura Bypass at 9.30 p.m., mudamal knife not being the same with which the deceased was assaulted, medical evidence as to injuries sustained by prosecution witnesses and other circumstances, held that in the facts and circumstances of the case, it could not be conclusively established that the prosecution had proved the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt. He, therefore, held that the accused were entitled to benefit of doubt and accordingly acquitted them. 6. In an appeal against an order of acquittal by the State, the High Court reversed the order of the trial court. It observed that on careful examination of evidence of PWs 1 to 4, it was clearly established that deceased Anjaniappa was done to death by Accused No. 8 and PWs 2 to 4 sustained injuries in the course of incident. It was also held by the High Court that con....
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.... that the High Court, considering the ground reality as to possibility of contradictions and omissions held that they did not affect the genesis or substratum of prosecution case and convicted the accused. The order does not suffer from legal infirmity calling for interference under Article 136 of the Constitution and the appeal deserves to be dismissed. 10. In view of rival submissions of the parties, we think it proper to consider and clarify the legal position first. Chapter XXIX (Sections 372-394) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as 'the present Code') deals with appeals. Section 372 expressly declares that no appeal shall lie from any judgment or order of a Criminal Court except as provided by the Code or by any other law for the time being in force. Section 373 provides for filing of appeals in certain cases. Section 374 allows appeals from convictions. Section 375 bars appeals in cases where the accused pleads guilty. Likewise, no appeal is maintainable in petty cases (Section 376). Section 377 permits appeals by the State for enhancement of sentence. Section 378 confers power on the State to present an appeal to the High Court from....
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....tee of the Privy Council as also before this Court. Since in the present appeal, we have been called upon to decide the ambit and scope of the power of an appellate Court in an appeal against an order of acquittal, we have confined ourselves to one aspect only, i.e. an appeal against an order of acquittal. 12. Bare reading of Section 378 of the present Code (Appeal in case of acquittal) quoted above, makes it clear that no restrictions have been imposed by the Legislature on the powers of the appellate Court in dealing with appeals against acquittal. When such an appeal is filed, the High Court has full power to reappreciate, review and reconsider the evidence at large, the material on which the order of acquittal is founded and to reach its own conclusions on such evidence. Both questions of fact and of law are open to determination by the High Court in an appeal against an order of acquittal. It cannot, however, be forgotten that in case of acquittal, there is a double presumption in favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of innocence available to him under the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person should be presumed to be innocent unless h....
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....an appeal against acquittal and an appeal against conviction. Though several authorities were cited revealing different views by High Courts dealing with an appeal from an order of acquittal, the Committee did not think it proper to discuss all the cases. Lord Russel summed up the legal position thus; There is in their opinion no foundation for the view, apparently supported by the judgments of some Courts in India, that the High Court has no power or jurisdiction to reverse an order of acquittal on a matter of fact, except in cases in which the lower Court has 'obstinately blundered', or has 'through incompetence, stupidity or perversity' reached such 'distorted conclusions as to produce a positive miscarriage of justice', or has in some other way so conducted itself as to produce a glaring miscarriage of justice, or has been tricked by the defence so as to produce a similar result. His Lordship, then proceeded to observe: Sections 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 o....
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....d that in an appeal under Section 417 of the (old) Code, the High Court had full power to review the evidence upon which the order of acquittal was founded. But it was equally well-settled that the presumption of innocence of the accused was further reinforced by his acquittal by the trial court, and the findings of the trial court which had the advantage of seeing the witnesses and hearing their evidence could be reversed only for very substantial and compelling reasons. 17. In Ajmer Singh v. State of Punjab 1953CriLJ521 , the accused was acquitted by the trial Court but was convicted by the High Court in an appeal against acquittal filed by the State. The aggrieved accused approached this Court. It was contended by him that there were 'no compelling reasons' for setting aside the order of acquittal and due and proper weight had not been given by the High Court to the opinion of the trial Court as regards the credibility of witnesses seen and examined. It was also commented that the High Court committed an error of law in observing that "when a strong 'prima facie' case is made out against an accused person it is his duty to explain the circumstances appearing i....
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....d; "It is, in our opinion, well settled that it is not enough for the High Court to take a different view of the evidence; there must also be substantial and compelling reasons for holding that the trial Court was wrong (emphasis supplied). Venkatarama Ayyar, J. (minority), in his dissenting judgment stated: Do the words "compelling reasons" in the above passage import a limitation on the powers of a court hearing an appeal under Section 417 not applicable to a court hearing appeals against conviction? If they do, then it is merely the old doctrine that appeals against acquittal are in a less favoured position, dressed in a new garb, and the reasons for rejecting it as unsound are as powerful as those which found favour with the Privy Council in Sheo Swarup v. King-Emperor and Nur Mohammad v. Emperor. But it is probable that these words were intended to express, as were the similar words of Lord Russell in Sheo Swarup that the court, hearing an appeal under Section 417 should observe the rules which all appellate courts should, before coming to a conclusion different from that of the trial court. If so understood, the expression "compelling reasons" would be....
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....er decisions of this Court, however, in emphasising the importance of adopting a cautious approach in dealing with appeals against acquittals, it was observed that the presumption of innocence is reinforced by the order of acquittal and so, 'the findings of the trial Court which had the advantage of seeing the witnesses and hearing their evidence can be reversed only for very substantial and compelling reasons' : vide Surajpal Singh v. The State. Similarly in Ajmer Singh v. State of Punjab, it was observed that the interference of the High Court in an appeal against the order of acquittal would be justified only if there are 'very substantial and compelling reasons to do so'. In some other decisions, it has been stated that an order of acquittal can be reversed only for 'good and sufficiently cogent reasons' or for 'strong reasons'. In appreciating the effect of these observations, it must be remembered that these observations were not intended to lay down a rigid or inflexible rule which should govern the decision of the High Court in appeals against acquittals. They were not intended, and should not be read to have intended to introduce an addition....
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....ond reasonable doubt which runs through the web of our law should not be stretched morbidly to embrace every hunch, hesitancy and degree of doubt. The excessive solicitude reflected in the attitude that a thousand guilty men may go but one innocent martyr shall not suffer is a false dilemma. Only reasonable doubts belong to the accused. Otherwise any practical system of justice will then break down and lose credibility with the community. The evil of acquitting a guilty person light heartedly as a learned author (Glanville Williams : 'Proof of Guilt') has saliently observed, goes much beyond the simple fact that just one guilty person has gone unpunished. If unmerited acquittals become general, they tend to lead to a cynical disregard of the law, and this in turn leads to a public demand for harsher legal presumptions against indicted 'persons' and more severe punishment of those who are found guilty. Thus, too frequent acquittals of the guilty may lead to a ferocious penal law, eventually eroding the judicial protection of the guiltless. For all these reasons it is true to say, with Viscount Simon, that 'a miscarriage of justice may arise from the acquittal of ....
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....le conclusions can be reached on the basis of the evidence on record, the Appellate Court should not disturb the finding of the Trial Court". This, of course, is not a new principle. It stems out of the fundamental principle of our criminal jurisprudence that the accused is entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt. If two reasonably probable and evenly balanced views of the evidence are possible, one must necessarily concede the existence of a reasonable doubt. But, fanciful and remote possibilities must be left out of account. To entitle an accused person to the benefit of a doubt arising from the possibility of a duality of views, the possible view in favour of the accused must be as nearly reasonably probable as that against him. If the preponderance of probability is all one way, a bare possibility of another view will not entitle the accused to claim the benefit of any doubt. It is, therefore, essential that any view of the evidence in favour of the accused must be reasonable even as any doubt, the benefit of which an accused person may claim, must be reasonable. (emphasis supplied) 25. In Ramesh Babulal Doshi v. State of Gujarat 1996CriLJ2867 , this Court said; "....
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.... generally it will not interfere with the order of acquittal because by passing an order of acquittal the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused is reinforced. The golden thread which runs through the web of administration of justice in criminal case is that if two views are possible on the evidence adduced in the case, one pointing to the guilt of the accused and the other to his innocence, the view which is favourable to the accused should be adopted. Such is not a jurisdiction limitation on the appellate court but a Judge made guidelines for circumspection. The paramount consideration of the court is to ensure that miscarriage of justice is avoided. A miscarriage of justice which may arise from the acquittal of guilty is no less than from the conviction of an innocent. In a case where the trial court has taken a view ignoring the admissible evidence, a duty is cast upon the High Court to reappreciate the evidence in acquittal appeal for the purposes of ascertaining as to whether all or any of the accused has committed any offence or not. 27. In Harijana Thirupala v. Public Prosecutor, High Court of A.P., Hyderabad 2002CriLJ3751 , this Court said; "Doubtless the Hig....
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....ith, by an appellate court, where the judgment of the trial court is based on evidence and the view taken is reasonable and plausible. It will not reverse the decision of the trial court merely because a different view is possible. The appellate court will also bear in mind that there is a presumption of innocence in favour of the accused and the accused is entitled to get the benefit of any doubt. Further if it decides to interfere, it should assign reasons for differing with the decision of the trial court". (emphasis supplied) 30. From the above decisions, in our considered view, the following general principles regarding powers of appellate Court while dealing with an appeal against an order of acquittal emerge; (1) An appellate Court has full power to review, reappreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded; (2) The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 puts no limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such power and an appellate Court on the evidence before it may reach its own conclusion, both on questions of fact and of law; (3) Various expressions, such as, 'substantial and compelling reasons....
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....f the learned Counsel for the appellants is well founded that it is not material whether Accused No. 1 had or had not filed a complaint or he was or was not examined by a doctor, but the fact that even though it was the case of prosecution that Accused No. 1 was injured during the course of incident, prosecution witnesses tried to suppress that fact which would throw doubt as to the correctness of the case or the manner in which the incident had happened. The trial Court had also stated that it was unnatural that the prosecution witnesses and deceased Anjaniappa could have gone to Hanumanthapura Bypass at about 9.30 p.m. when a shorter route was available for going to their destination. The trial Court observed that there was inconsistency in prosecution evidence as to availability of electric light at the time of incident. The Court also noted that the knife produced before the Court as mudamal article was not the same which was used by Accused No. 8 for inflicting injury on the deceased. There was also no consistency in evidence as to injuries sustained by prosecution witnesses. 32. In our view, if in the light of above circumstances, the trial Court felt that the accused coul....