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Honnaiah T.H. vs State of Karnataka and Others

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 794Decided 4 Aug 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 1147 of 2022

Background

A village water-allocation dispute in Karnataka in 2016 escalated into violence in which two men died and several others, including the appellant, were injured. The appellant was the original informant on whose account the FIR was registered, but at trial the court refused to let the prosecution mark his recorded statement as an exhibit, reasoning it was really a statement to police under Section 161 CrPC rather than the FIR itself. When the appellant, as the injured informant, filed a criminal revision against that order, the Karnataka High Court dismissed it as not maintainable, holding a complainant/victim could only revise final orders of acquittal, conviction on a lesser offence, or inadequate compensation.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held the High Court's view of a victim's revisional rights was too narrow: the restriction under Section 372 CrPC applies to a victim's statutory appeal, not to the High Court's independent revisional jurisdiction under Sections 397/401 CrPC, which can be invoked by any third party, including an informant, so long as the impugned order is not merely interlocutory. Relying on its precedents (Sheetala Prasad, Menoka Malik), the Court held a private complainant can seek revision where the trial court has wrongly shut out evidence the prosecution wished to produce: exactly what happened here when the appellant's statement was excluded. It therefore allowed the appeal, set aside both the trial court's and High Court's orders, directed the trial court to permit the statement to be marked as an exhibit, and ordered the long-pending trial (since 2016) to conclude by 31 March 2023.

Lesson Learnt

An injured victim or informant is not powerless to challenge a wrongful evidentiary ruling mid-trial. They can invoke the High Court's revisional jurisdiction where material evidence has been wrongly excluded, and this right is not limited to challenging only a final acquittal or conviction.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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