Shivnath Prasad v. The State of Bihar (2008 INSC 1362)

Court: Supreme Court of India
Decided: 28 November 2008
Bench: Arijit Pasayat, Mukundakam Sharma
Case no.: Criminal Appeal No. 1892 of 2008
Result: The appeal is accordingly disposed of.

Headnote

Penal Code, 1860 - ss.279 and 304A - Conviction under - Revision petition filed by accused - Dismissed by High Court by a cryptic order - On appeal, held:· High Court did not notice various submissions made by the accused - Matter remitted to High Court for consideration afresh.

The appellant was convicted by the trial court and the appellate Court under ss.274 and 304A IPC. The revision petition filed by appellant was dismissed by the High court on the ground that there was no scope for interference.

In the instant appeal, it was contended for the appellant that while dismissing the revision petition, the High Court did not notice several infirmities in the prosecution version i.e. the 1.0., the doctor and the informant were not examined; the postmortem report was not exhibited; the trial court and the appellate court relied upon the_ evidence of PW-3, who was not the informant ')._ and was not even named as an eye-witness; and out of the five eye-witnesses, three did not support the prosecution version while one eye-witness was not examined during investigation.

Disposing of the appeal and remitting the matter to the High Court, the Court

HELD: The High Court, by a cryptic order, dismissed the revision petition, without noticing the various submissions made by the appellant. In the circumstances, the impugned order of the High Court is set aside. [Para 7] [768-E-F]

Headnote as published in the Digital Supreme Court Reports by the Supreme Court of India. Paragraph references point to the judgment below.

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Judgment

DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J.1. Heard 2. Leave granted.

¶3Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment of a learned Single Judge of the Patna High Court dismissing the revision petition filed by the appellant.

¶4Background facts in a nutshell are as follows:

The appellant was convicted for offences.punishable under Sections 279 and 304-A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short 'the iPC') by the learned Judicial Magistrate, Bettiah, West Champaran. He was sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for six months and one year respectively. Both the sentences were directed to run concurrently. An appeal was filed and the leaned Add!tional District and Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No. II, 13ettiah, West Champaran affirmed the. conviction and sentence. The revision filed was dismissed by the impugned order on the ground that there was no scope for interference.

¶5Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the prosecution version has not been established. There were several infirmities which the High Court unfortunately did not notice. The 1.0., the Doctor and the informant were not examined. The post-mortem report was also not exhibited. PW-1' 3, who claimed to be the son of the deceased was not the informant. The Trial Court and the First Appellate Court relied upon his evidence. Significantly, he was al~ not named as an eye witness in the FIR. PW-4 claimed to· be an eye-witness. But, he was not examined during investigation. Out of the five witnesses, who were stated to be eye~witnesses, three did not support the prosecution version.

¶6According to learned counsel for the appellant, all these factors have not been considered by the High Court. Learned 4.. counsel for the respondent-State supported the impugned order of the High Court.

¶7We find that the High Court has, by a cryptic order, dismissed the revision petition. It has not noticed the various submissions made by the appellant, as noticed above. In the circumstances, we set aside the impugned order of the High Court and remit the matter to it for fresh consideration in accordance with law.

8.8.B~ Appeal disposed of.

Case details

Arising from

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No. 1892 of 2008.

-'f From the Judgment and final Order dated 30.6.2008 of the

High Court of Judicature at Patna in Crl. Revision No. 572. of 2008.

Manish Kumar Saran and Nirmal Kumar Ambastha for the Appellant.

Gopal Singh and Shweta Kumari Singh for the Respondent.

Source: Supreme Court of India, Digital Supreme Court Reports, via the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open dataset (CC BY 4.0). Text was extracted from the official PDF and may contain conversion errors. Check the official PDF before relying on it.