Debangana Ray
Published on August 14, 2022 at 21:49 IST
The Supreme Court observed that a revision petition filed before a high court by a de facto or third party complainant is maintainable.
As the power of revision can be exercised as suo moto by the high court, the revisional jurisdiction can also be invoked by a third party and there should not be a bar to inviting the attention of the HC when a situation to exercise the power has arisen.
In this case, the de facto complainant had approached the HC by filing a revision petition. However, the HC refused to accept his petition on the ground of maintainability. The HC observed that there was no locus standi for the complainant to file a revision petition.
The SC bench observed that “According to the charge sheet, the statement of the appellant/informant formed the basis of the FIR and set the criminal law in motion. Rejection of the prayer of the public prosecutor to mark the statement as an exhibit would possibly imperil the validity of the FIR. “
“In this background, the order of the trial court declining to mark the statement of the informant as an exhibit is an intermediate order affecting important rights of the parties and cannot be said to be purely of an interlocutory nature.”
“In the present case, if the statement of the appellant/informant is not permitted to be marked as an exhibit, it would amount to a gross miscarriage of justice.”
In the present case, the appellant filed a criminal revision as his interests as an informant and as an injured victim were adversely affected by the trial court rejecting the prayer to mark the statement of the informant as an exhibit.
Having held that the order of the trial court is not interlocutory in nature and that the bar under Section 397(2) of the CrPC is inapplicable, a criminal revision filed by an informant against the said order of the trial court was maintainable.
Hence, the bench allowed the appeal and directed the trial court to allow the plea of the public prosecutor.