Criminal Law – Administration of the criminal justice – Acquittal on technical grounds by the High Court – Application of law available today – Respondents were convicted by the Trial Court – High Court allowed the appeal and acquitted the respondents – Acquittal was solely on the principle of law laid down by this Court in Mohan Lal’s case – Informant and investigator must not be the same person – Reliance upon Mohan Lal’s case – Correctness:
Held: The judgment in Mohan Lal’s case was delivered by this Court on 16th August, 2018 – The High Court judgment in favor of the respondents is dated 11th December, 2018 – After the judgment of the Mohan Lal’s case, a three-Judge Bench of this Court in Varinder Kumar’s case clarified the position with reference to Mohan Lal’s case – Further, the opinion expressed in Mohan Lal’s case was doubted and the matter was referred to the Constitution Bench (Mukesh Singh’s case) where the opinion expressed by this Court in Mohan Lal’s case was held to be not a good law and overruled – In the case in hand, the judgment of Mohan Lal’s case prevailed when the High Court decided the appeals – However, thereafter, the matter is pending in this Court and since appeals are continuation of proceedings, the law as available today is to be applied – The acquittal of the respondents in the present case was merely on technical ground in view of Mohan Lal’s case which was diluted in Varinder Kumar’s case and then overruled subsequently by the Constitution Bench of this Court in Mukesh Singh’s case – Hence, impugned judgment of the High Court is set aside – Matter remitted back to the High Court for consideration on merits. [Paras 13, 15-17]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Ankit Gyan. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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