High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan: The appellate court had allowed the appeal of the respondent-complainant under Sections 372 and 378 CrPC and set aside the acquittal of the appellant recorded by the trial court and convicted the appellant under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. This decision of the learned appellate court was challenged by the appellant.
Learned counsel for the appellants contended that the learned Sessions Judge had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal against acquittal preferred by the respondent complainant. Drawing attention of the Court to the Hon’ble Division Bench Judgment dated 2.12.2014 rendered in the case of Dhanne Singh v. State of Rajasthan, 2014 SCC OnLine Raj 5499, he urged that the only remedy available to the complainant was to file an application for grant of leave to appeal before the High Court under Section 378(iv) CrPC. He further contended that the impugned judgment is per se without jurisdiction and bad in the eye of law and thus deserved to be set aside.
The Court held that in a suit where the jurisdiction to entertain a challenge to an order of acquittal in a complaint case is questioned, the complainant can only avail the remedy of filing an application for grant of leave to appeal against the judgment of acquittal in the High Court under Section 378(iv) CrPC and opined that the Sessions Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the victim’s appeal under Section 372 CrPC when the acquittal was recorded in a complaint case.
The Bench of Sandeep Mehta, J. set aside the impugned judgment dated 30.10.2015 passed by the learned District and Sessions Judge, Dungarpur and upheld the acquittal of the appellant recorded by the trial court vide judgment dated 19.9.2013. [Praveen Kumar v. The State of Rajasthan, 2017 SCC OnLine Raj 2209, decided on 9.8.2017]
