ORDER
R.M.S. Khandeparkar, J.
1. The petitioner is seeking to challenge the Order dated 13-7-1998 passed in Criminal Revision Application No. 29 of
1998 by the Sessions Judge at Panaji. The learned Sessions Judge has, by the impugned order, confirmed the Order dated 19-6-1998 passed in C.C. No. 3/92/C by the learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Panaji. By the said Order, the learned Magistrate had declined to direct the complainant/ respondent No, 1 to furnish to the accused/petitioner a copy of the complaint to police lodged by the complainant in the Police Station at Panaji. According to the petitioner, although in case of private complaint there is no provision for furnishing copies of the documents on which the complainant wants to rely upon such copies are necessary for effective cross-examination of the complainant and his witnesses by or on behalf of the accused and great prejudice may result if copies of such documents are not furnished in advance to the accused and it may amount to denial of fair opportunity to the accused to meet the case against him.
2. By the impugned Order, the learned Sessions Judge placing reliance upon the judgment of. the Division Bench of this Court in the matter of Balukishan A. Devidayal v. The State of Maharashtra, reported in 1975 Cri.L.J. 1891, has held that since the proceedings before the Trial Court are on account of private complaint field by the respondent No. 1 herein, considering the provisions contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the accused/petitioner is not entitled to insist for the copies of the documents on which the complainant wants to rely upon be furnished to the accused and the accused can very well inspect the documents when the same are produced by the complainant in the course of inquiry/trial.
3. At the outset, Shri A.P. Lawande, learned Public Prosecutor appearing for respondent No. 2 has raised preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the petition itself. The petitioner had filed criminal revision application before the learned Sessions Judge against the order of the trial Court by invoking powers under section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Once the petitioner has preferred criminal revision application in terms of provisions contained in section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the second revision application is barred in terms of section 397(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is not disputed by the learned Public Prosecutor that even in such situation, the inherent powers of the High Court under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are not taken away and the High Court is certainly entitled in its supervisory jurisdiction to interfere with the orders passed by the courts below, but the same is possible only in cases of grave miscarriage of justice or abuse of process of Court or when the required statutory procedure is not complied with or there is any failure of justice as such or the order or sentence imposed by the Magistrate requires correction. In the instant case, the petitioner has not made out any such case warranting this Court to invoke its power under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and, therefore, the petition is to be rejected in limine. In support of his contention the learned Public Prosecutor sought to rely upon the judgment of the Apex Court in the matter of Dharampal v. Smt. Ramshn, . On the other and, Shri S. G. Dessai, the learned Senior Advocate appearing for the petitioner, submitted that considering the fact that the learned Sessions Judge has rejected the revision application, solely on the ground of the decision of the Division Bench in the matter of Balukishan A. Devidayal v. The State of Maharashtra (supra), without considering the facts of the case in hand, ac-
cording to the learned advocate, there is clear case of miscarriage of justice and the interference of this Court is necessary to correct the improper and illegal order passed by both the courts below. Drawing my attention to para 5 of the complaint, the learned advocate submitted that there is clear reference to the complaint to the police filed by the complainant and the same complaint is sought to be produced in the course of evidence by him and it was in relation to that complaint that the petitioner had requested the trial Court to direct the respondent No. 1 to furnish copy of the same to the petitioner. According to the learned advocate, once the complainant refers to a document in the complaint, such document forms part of the complaint and, therefore, considering the provisions contained in section 204(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the accused/petitioner is entitled for a copy of such document as a matter of right. Even otherwise, according to the learned advocate, considering the fact that it is a criminal case and the accused is presumed to be innocent till he is proved to be guilty and in order to give fair and proper opportunity to the accused to meet the case against him, it is absolutely necessary for him to have copies of the documents on which the complainant seeks to rely upon.
4. There is no doubt that the Apex Court in the matter of Dharampal v. Smt. Ramshri (supra) has dearly held that the inherent powers of the High Court under section 482 of the Code cannot be utilized for exercising powers which are expressly barred by the Code and, therefore, second revision application under the Code of Criminal Procedure having been clearly barred, the High Court cannot entertain such second revision application. The relevant observations of the Apex Court in the said case read thus :
“The question that falls for our consideration now is whether the High Court could have utilised the powers under section 482 of the Code and entertained a second revision application at the instance of the 1st respondent. Admittedly the 1st respondent had preferred a Criminal Application being Cr. R. No. 180/78 to the Sessions Court against the order passed by the Magistrate on 17th October, 1978 withdrawing the attachment. The Sessions Judge had dismissed the said application on 14th May, 1979. Section 397(3) bars a second revision application by the same party. It is now well settled that the inherent powers under section 482 of the Code cannot be utilised for exercising powers which are expressly barred by the Code. Hence the High Court had clearly erred in entertaining the second revision at the instance of 1st respondent. On this short ground itself, the impugned order of the High Court can be set aside.”
Moreover, at the same time, one cannot forget that though the second revision by the same party is not maintainable, nevertheless the powers of the High Court under section 482 are not curtailed when occasion demands the exercise of such powers. The Apex Court in the matter of Krishnan v. Krishnaveni, has held that the object of section 483 and the purpose behind conferring the revisional power under section 397 read with section 401, upon the High Court is to invest continuous supervisory jurisdiction so as to prevent miscarriage of justice or to correct irregularity of the procedure or to meet out justice. The Apex Court has also observed that the inherent power of the High Court is preserved by section 482 and that the inherent power of the High Court is not one conferred by the Code of Criminal Procedure but one which the High
Court has already in it and it is only preserved by the Code. In the said judgment, the Apex Court has further ruled thus ;-
“Ordinarily, when revision has been barred by section 397(3) of the Code, a person accused/complainant-cannot be allowed to take recourse to the revision to the High Court under section 397(1) or under inherent powers of the High Court under section 482 of the Code since it may amount to circumvention of the provisions of section 397(3) or section 397(2) of the Code. The High Court has suo motu power under section 401 and continuous supervisory jurisdiction under section 433 of the Code. So, when the High Court on examination of the record finds that there is grave miscarriage of justice or abuse of the process of the courts or the required statutory procedure has not been complied with or there is failure of justice or order passed or sentence imposed by the Magistrate requires correction, it is but the duty of the High Court to have it corrected at the inception; lest grave miscarriage of justice would ensue. It is, therefore, to meet the ends of justice or to prevent abuse of the process that the High Court is preserved with inherent power and would be justified, under such circumstances, to exercise the inherent power and in an appropriate case even revisional power under section 397(1) read with section 401 of the Code. It may be exercised sparingly ao as to avoid needless multiplicity of procedure, unnecessary delay in trial and protraction of proceedings. The object of criminal trial is to render public justice to punish the criminal and to see that the trial is concluded expeditiously before the memory of the witness fades out.”
5. In other words, the Apex Court has clearly held that the second revision by the same party under section 397(3) of the Code is barred. Nevertheless, the supervisory powers under section 483 and inherent powers under section 482 can be exercised to meet the ends of justice and to prevent abuse of process by the courts below in an appropriate case, subject however, that the exercise thereof shall be sparingly in an appropriate case. Considering this provision of law and the facts in the case in hand, undisputedly, the petitioner had preferred first revision application before the Sessions Judge and the learned Sessions Judge, after going through the records, has clearly held that the petitioner is not entitled to insist upon the copies of the documents in a private complaint and in that regard has placed reliance upon the judgment of the Division Bench of this Court. It cannot be said that there is any abuse of process of Court or a grave miscarriage of justice having resulted from the impugned judgment. The learned Sessions Judge cannot be accused of failure to comply with the required statutory procedure. It cannot be said that there is a failure of justice on account of the impugned order. The learned Sessions Judge was bound to follow the decision of the Division Bench of this Court. Indeed, the Division Bench of this Court in Balukishan A. Devidayal v. The State of Maharashtra (supra), has clearly held thus :-
” A party to a litigation cannot demand copies from the other side as a matter of right. It is only if law enables him to get the copies from the other side that he can ask the other side to furnish copies. Mr. Dessai is unable to point out any provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code and or any other relevant Act which entitles the accused in a case under the R.P.U.P. Act to demand copies from the complainant.
… … … … …
Mr, Tipnis therefore, submitted that even in the present case, as section 173(4) of the Code is inapplicable, the accused cannot ask for supply of copies of documents mentioned in the-list annexed to the com-
plaint, which includes the statements of the witnesses already examined or are likely to be examined by the complainant. The contention of Mr. Tipnis must be upheld as the accused has no right to be furnished with copies by the complainant under any law.”
6. Section 204(3) which deals with the procedure to be followed upon issuance of the process, states that in a proceeding instituted upon a complaint made in writing, every summons or warrant issued under sub-section (1) shall be accompanied by a copy of such complaint. As rightly submitted by Shri G.R. Sharma, learned Advocate for the respondent No. 1, the expression “complaint” has been defined in section 2(d) to mean any allegation made orally or in writing to Magistrate, with a view to his taking action under the Code, that some person, whether known or unknown, has committed an offence, but does not include a police report. The Explanation to the said definition of the expression “complaint” provides that a report made by the Police Officer in a case which discloses, after investigation, the commission of a non-cognizable offence shall be deemed to be a complaint; and the Police Officer by whom such report is made shall be deemed to be the complainant. In other words, in terms of provisions of law as contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, pursuant to the issue of summons, the accused is certainly entitled to have a copy of the complaint filed by the complainant. However, complaint does not include the documents sought to be relied upon or referred to by the complainant. Being so, it cannot be said that non-supply of copies of the documents sought to be relied upon would amount to any failure to comply with the required statutory procedure or that there is any abuse of process of the Court or there is any failure of justice as such.
7. In this regard, it is also worthwhile to refer the judgment of the Apex Court in the matter Kurukshetra University v. State of Haryana, , wherein it has been held that the inherent powers do not confer an arbitrary jurisdiction on the High Court to act according to whims or caprice and that the statutory power has to be exercised sparingly, with circumspection and in the rarest of rare cases.
8. Considering the provisions of law, the various decisions of the Apex Court as well as of this Court on the point in issue and on the point of the exercise of powers under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, I do not find any case made out for invoking such powers in this case by the Court and, as such, on the preliminary objection raised by the learned Public Prosecutor in that regard, the petition is bound to fail.
9. In the result, therefore, the petition is summarily rejected, being not maintainable. The petitioner to pay costs of Rs. 500/- to each of the respondents.
10. Petition dismissed.