ORDER
1. These two applications have been moved by the petitioner, one for seeking restoration of the criminal revision No. 187/89 (Cr. M. 298/89) which came to be dismissed on September 22, 1989 and the other (Cr. M. 266/89) seeking condensation of delay in moving the said application.
2. The criminal revision had been brought under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, against an order dated August 4, 1988, of Shri Shiv Charan, Metropolitan Magistrate, seeking the relief that warrants of arrest issued against the petitioner may be cancelled. The warrants of arrest appear to have been issued for non-payment of arrears of maintenance. On September 22, 1989, the following order was made :
“Present : None of the petitioner. Ms. Usha Bhatia in person.
Crl.R. 187/89 and Crl.M. 265 and 266/89
No one has turned up on behalf of the petitioner to pursue the matter. I have gone through the file and find no merit in this petition. Dismissed.”
3. So, it is evident from the aforesaid order that after the show-cause notice was issued to the respondent as to why the petition be not admitted, the petition came to be dismissed in liming on merits. The short question which arises for consideration is whether such an order could be recalled and the criminal revision could be revived for giving some hearing to counsel for the petitioner. Section 403 of the Code of Criminal Procedure clearly lays down that no party has any right to be heard either personally or by pleader before any court exercising its power of revision but the court may, if it thinks fit, when exercising such power, hear any party either personally or by pleader. So, there is no absolute right of any party to urge that he must be heard before any order is made in a criminal revision. In Kerala Transport Company v. D. S. Soma Shekar, 1982 Cri LJ 1065 (Kant) and Kailash Nath Lahiri v. Shantilal Khushaldas & Bros. Pvt. Ltd., 1977 Cri LJ 1520 (Goa), it has been laid down that there is no right of party to be heard in person before a criminal revision is decided. It is also quite clear that once a criminal revision has been dismissed on merits, the court has no power to review the said order.
4. In State of Orissa v. Ram Chander Agarwala, , it was laid down that once a judgment has been pronounced by a High Court either in exercise of its appellate or its revisional jurisdiction, no review or revision can be entertained against that judgment as there is no provision in the Code of Criminal Procedure which would enable the High Court to review the same or to exercise revisional jurisdiction. It was also clarified that inherent powers of the High Court also cannot be invoked to exercise a power which is specifically prohibited by the Code of Criminal Procedure.
5. It is settled law that neither a criminal appeal nor a criminal revision can be dismissed in default. So, when the court passed the order on September 22, 1989, dismissing the criminal revision on merits, the court acted in accordance with law, (See Nisha Sharma v. Vinod Kumar, 1989 Rajdhani LR 130 : (1980 Cri LJ NOC 57)).
6. Counsel for the petitioner has made reference to Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, West Bengal v. Mohan Singh, . I have gone through the judgment and find that it has no applicability to the point arisen for decision before me. In the cited case, a criminal revision had been earlier dismissed by the High Court on a short ground that it would not be proper to interfere with the proceedings before the trial court as evidence was yet to be recorded. The second criminal revision was filed after some period when no progress was made in the trial and the question arose whether the High Court could entertain the second petition for seeking the quashment of the trial. The Supreme Court held that as the first petition was not decided on merits, the second petition was maintainable. Such is not the case here.
7. So, in view of the above discussion, I hold that the criminal revision No. 187/89 cannot be now revived. I dismiss these applications.
8. Applications dismissed.