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Mahabir v. State of Haryana

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 120Decided 29 Jan 2025
Crl.A. No.-005560-005561 - 2024
Justice J.B. Pardiwala · Justice R. Mahadevan

Background

Following a fight on Holi in 1998 that left one man dead, the trial court acquitted Mahabir and three others of murder in 2005, convicting only one other accused. The State never appealed the acquittal. Years later, the deceased's father filed a criminal revision against the acquittal, but he died before it was decided, as did the one convicted accused and, eventually, even the revision petitioner himself, leaving no one actively pursuing the case by the time the Punjab and Haryana High Court heard it in 2024. Despite this, and without notice to the acquitted men, the High Court reversed the acquittal in revision and sentenced them to life imprisonment, and they were taken into custody the same day.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had no power to do what it did: Section 401(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure expressly bars a High Court from converting an acquittal into a conviction while exercising revisional jurisdiction, only a full appeal against acquittal (which the State never filed) can do that, and a private party cannot use a revision to achieve the same result via Section 401(5) once that route was time-barred. The Court also found the High Court had acted without giving the appellants a fair hearing, on a case where both the original complainant and the sole convict had already died. Separately, the Court strongly criticized the State's Public Prosecutor for asking that the appellants get the death penalty, calling this a dereliction of a prosecutor's duty to be fair to both sides, and directed the Haryana government to pay Rs. 5,00,000 compensation to each of the three appellants for their wrongful re-incarceration.

Lesson Learnt

A High Court cannot convert an acquittal into a conviction through its revisional powers, only a proper appeal against acquittal can do that; and a Public Prosecutor's job is to assist the court fairly, not to seek the harshest possible punishment regardless of the evidence.

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

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