Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia, J. - (1.) Mr. K.D.S. Sandhu appearing for the complainant Kartar Singh has stated that the State had not filed appeal against the acquittal as envisaged under Section 378 Criminal Procedure Code The prosecution case, in short, is that Kartar Singh complainant made a statement that he sells milk and his brother Resham Singh is having separate house and is residing there with his family members. He has further stated that on 20th August, 1994, iron rods and concrete were sent at a cart from Bhatinda to his village in order to construct a house and he, after selling the milk at Bhatinda was coming on motorcycle and at bus stand of his village, he stopped his motorcycle to know whether the cart loaded with construction material has reached the village or not. It is stated that at that time, Jagga Singh respondent accused who was his uncle and was armed with 12 bore gun, came on a scooter of Baldev Singh Patwari from Bhatinda. Jagga Singh alighted from the scooter of Bladev Singh and to cut the story short, it is stated that the witnesses reached at the spot and the accused respondent fired a shot towards the complainant but the complainant took shelter behind a camel cart and the pellets hit the left arm of Jaspal Kaur wife of the complainant. Criminal Revision No. 228 of 1996 2 It is further stated that the pellets also hit the door of Tek Singh and some hit the right arm of Ranjit Kaur and the forehead of Kuldeep Kaur. The learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bhatinda relied upon the medical evidence to hold that no fire arm injury was caused to the injured. It will be apposite here to reproduce the finding of the trial Court : "It is admitted by PW1 Dr K.L. Dhunna during the course of cross examination that the injuries could be the result of brick bats and this version is also supported by the Investigation officer ASI Joga Singh PW6 since I find that he has categorically admitted during the course of cross- examination as under : "I did not notice any pallet or wad at the place of occurrence. This fact has come to my notice during the investigation that there was some exchange of brick bats, but no brick bat was found at the spot... There was no pallet mark on the camel cart... There was no visible pallet marks on the wall. All this shows that no pallet or wad found from the place of occurrence nor any mark was noticed by the investigation officer on the camel cart or on the wall of the house rather it indicates that no fire arm was used and the injuries were not the result of fire arm."
(2.) Learned trial Court further held that prosecution case is also doubtful since no blood was found at the place of occurrence or on the clothes of the injured which clearly spells out that fire arm was not used in this case.
(3.) It was held in AIR 1968 Supreme Court 707 Mahendra Partap Singh v. Sarju Singh and another , relying upon D. Stephens v. Nosibolla, AIR 1951 Supreme Court 196 , as under : "only two grounds are mentioned by this Court as entitling the High Court to set aside an acquittal in a revision and to order a retrial. They are that there must exist a manifest illegality in the judgment of the Court of Session ordering the acquittal or there must be a gross miscarriage of justice. In explaining these two propositions, this Court further states that the High Court is not entitled to interfere even if a wrong view of law is taken by the Court of Session or if even there is mis-appreciation of evidence. Again, in Logendranath Jha v. Polajlal Biswas, 1951 SCR 676 (AIR 1951 SC 316 ), this Court points out that the High Court is entitled in revision to set aside an acquittal if there is an error on a point of law or no appraisal of the evidence at all. This Court observes that it is not sufficient to say that the judgment under revision is "perverse" or "lacking in true correct perspective". It is pointed out further that by ordering a retrial, the dice is loaded against the accused, because however much the High Court may caution the Subordinate Court, it is always difficult to re-weigh the evidence ignoring the opinion of the High Court. Again in K. Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, 1963 (3) SCR 412 : (AIR 1962 SC 1788 ), it is pointed out that an interference in revision with an order of acquittal can only take place if there is a glaring defect of procedure such as that the Court had no jurisdiction to try the case or the Court had shut out some material evidence which was admissible or attempted to take into account evidence which was not admissible or had overlooked some evidence. Although the list given by this Court is not exhaustive of all the circumstances in which the High Court may interfere with an acquittal in revision it is obvious that the defect in the judgment under revision must be analogous to those actually indicated by this Court. As stated not one of these points which have been laid down by this Court, was covered in the present case. In fact on reading the judgment of the High Court it is apparent to us that the learned judge has reweighed the evidence from his own point of view and reached inferences contrary to those of the Sessions judge on almost every point. This we do not conceive to be his duty in dealing in revision with an acquittal when Government has not chosen to file an appeal against it. In other words, the learned Judge in the High Court has not attended to the rules laid down by this Court and has acted in breach of them." ;