Sdo (Op) Sub Divisional Babyal v. State Of Haryana And ANR.

The law w.r.t. exercise of appellate jurisdiction stands settled by Four Judges Bench of Apex Court in case of Bansidhar Mohanty vs. State of Orissa, reported as AIR 1955 Supreme Court 585 holding as under :

It will be sufficient to refer to the decisions of this Court in -- 'Surajpal Singh v. The State', AIR 1952 Supreme Court 52; - 'Puran v. State of Punjab', AIR 1953 Supreme Court 459 and 'Narayan Ittiravi v. State of TravancoreCochin' AIR 1953 Supreme Court 478. It is now well settled by the abovementioned decisions that while in an appeal under Section 417, Criminal Procedure Code of the High Court has full power to review the evidence upon which the order of acquittal was founded, nevertheless, in exercising the power conferred by the Code the High Court will give proper weight and consideration to such matters as (i) the views of the trial Judge as to the credibility of witnesses; (ii) the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused reinforced by the fact of his acquittal at the trial, (iii) the right of the accused to the benefit of any doubt and (iv) the slowness of an appellate Court in disturbing a finding of fact arrived at by a Judge who had the advantage of seeing the witnesses."