Kerala HC: Revisional Power U/S 263 Not Invocable When AO Grants Sec 32AC Deduction After Inquiry  ||  J&K&L HC: Section 359 BNSS Doesn’t Limit High Court’s Inherent Power U/S 528 to Quash FIRs  ||  Bombay HC: BMC Ban on Footpath Cooking via Gas/Grill Doesn’t Apply to Vendors Using Induction  ||  Madras HC: Buyer Not Liable for Seller’s Tax Default; Purchase Tax Can’t Be Imposed under TNGST Act  ||  Kerala HC: Oral Allegations Alone Insufficient to Sustain Bribery Charges Against Ministers  ||  Delhi HC: CCI Cannot Levy Interest Retrospectively Before Valid Service of Demand Notice  ||  Delhi HC: VC Rules Don’t Shield PMLA Accused From Physically Appearing Before ED in Probe  ||  SC: If Complaint Reveals Cognizable Offence, Magistrate May Order FIR Registration U/S .156(3) CrPC  ||  SC: Private Buses Can’t Operate on Inter-State Routes Overlapping Notified State Transport Routes  ||  Delhi HC: Writ Petition Not Maintainable Against Provisional Attachment When PMLA Remedy Exists    

Central Bureau of Investigation Vs. Shyam Bihari and Ors. - (Supreme Court) (17 Jul 2023)

In an appeal against acquittal, the power of the appellate court to reappreciate evidence and come to its own conclusion is not circumscribed by any limitation

MANU/SC/0774/2023

Criminal

Present appeal assails the judgment and order of the High Court. By the said order, though the delay in preferring the appeal against the judgment and order of acquittal passed by the trial court was condoned, the application seeking leave to appeal under Section 378(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) was rejected and in consequence the Government Appeal was dismissed.

It is trite law that, in an appeal against acquittal, the power of the appellate court to reappreciate evidence and come to its own conclusion is not circumscribed by any limitation. But it is equally settled that the appellate court must not interfere with an order of acquittal merely because a contrary view is permissible, particularly, where the view taken by the trial court is a plausible view based on proper appreciation of evidence and is not vitiated by ignorance/misreading of relevant evidence on record.

In the instant case, the prosecution case rested on ocular account as well as on certain circumstances. Neither PW3 nor PW6 could identify any of the three Accused. They did not depose that the three policemen involved in the crime were those who were facing trial. Thus, there is no infirmity, much less perversity, in the view taken by the trial court that the testimony of PW-3 and PW-6 is not of much help to the prosecution qua the three Accused facing trial.

The circumstances found proved do not constitute a chain so far complete as to indicate that in all human probability it were the Accused persons and no one else who committed the crime. In such a situation, there was no option for the trial court but to extend the benefit of doubt to the Accused. Present Court do not find it to be a fit case to interfere with the order passed by the High Court and remit the matter only for the High Court to rewrite the judgment as the same, would be an exercise in futility. Appeal dismissed.

Tags : EVIDENCE   ACQUITTAL   LEGALITY  

Share :        

Disclaimer | Copyright 2025 - All Rights Reserved