Punjab and Haryana High Court: The Court in this case dealt with a revision petition under S. 401 CrPC challenging the judgment of the trial court, Chandigarh convicting and sentencing him rigorous imprisonment for 2 years for substantive offences under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 IPC.
Learned counsel for the petitioner argued that a few material witnesses were not examined in the case. The Court noted that the counsel for the revisionist-petitioner has raised various other arguments like material discrepancies in the statements of PWs, non-joining of independent witnesses etc. However, H. S. Madaan, J. mentioned clearly in the judgment that such type of contentions do not cut much ice and were not of much concern. The Court observed after hearing the arguments by the petitioner as well as on examining the records of the lower court that the trial court has by giving proper reasoning, has arrived at the conclusion that his non-examination does not make much difference, when the case is otherwise established on the file and it agreed to it.
The Court went on to explain the scope of revision petition before the High Court stating that revisional jurisdiction is somewhat limited in nature and while exercising the same it is to be seen whether the order passed is manifestly illegal or would result in gross miscarriage of justice and therefore, the instant case would not fall within four corners of S. 401 CrPC.
However, the Court considered that the petitioner was 65 years old and had already spent 8 months in jail and in lieu of this, directed that the petitioner be treated leniently. Also keeping in mind that there was no previous conviction against the petitioner, it held that the ends of justice would still be met if the sentence is reduced from two years to one-and-a-half years. [Rajinder Singh v. Union Territory, Chandigarh, 2017 SCC OnLine P&H 1717, decided on 18.07.2017]