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Naval Kishore Mishra v. The State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 725Decided 5 Jul 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 979 of 2019
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul · Justice K.M. Joseph

Background

The appellant's brother was murdered, and the accused were acquitted by the trial court. The State's own attempt to appeal that acquittal was rejected when leave to appeal was declined, and when the victim (the deceased's brother) separately tried to appeal the acquittal as a "victim" under the proviso to Section 372 CrPC, the Allahabad High Court dismissed that appeal too, reasoning simply that since the State's government appeal had already failed for want of leave, it would not be appropriate to let the victim's appeal proceed.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that a victim's right to appeal an acquittal under the Section 372 proviso is independent of the State's right to appeal, and relying on its earlier ruling in Mallikarjun Kodagalli vs. State of Karnataka, held that a victim does not need to separately seek leave to appeal in such a case, unlike the State, which does need leave under Section 378 CrPC. Since the High Court's only reason for dismissing the victim's appeal was the mistaken view that it was tied to the fate of the State's leave application, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order and allowed the appeal, directing that the victim's appeal against the acquittal be sent back to the High Court to be heard and decided on its actual merits.

Lesson Learnt

A crime victim (including a close relative acting as legal heir) has an independent statutory right to challenge an acquittal in appeal and does not need the State's permission or leave to do so: courts cannot dismiss a victim's appeal merely because a separate government appeal on the same acquittal failed.

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

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