ORDER
B.A. Khan, J.
1. Revision petition No. 24/94 was dismissed by me on merits vide judgment dt. 8-3-1995. Petitioner who had challenged the closure of his evidence was not present on that date. He has now filed this Cr. MP praying for re-hearing of the revision petition on the ground that he had been denied an opportunity of being heard in violation of principles of natural justice. His plea is that his counsel could not appear on 8-3-95 due to some unavoidable circumstances and that a re-hearing in a Criminal revision was permissible under Section 439(2) Cr. P.C. His counsel Mr. Sethi has also sought support from a judgment of this Court reported in 1981 JKLR, 353 : (1982 Cri LJ 297) (FB) and a judgment of the Supreme Court reported in 1993 Cri LJ 1590 : (1993 AIR SCW 1174). The main point to be determined is whether it is open to the High Court to re-hear a criminal revision decided on merits one way or the other. Since petitioner has placed reliance on Section 439 Cr.P.C., it would be profitable to extract the relevant Section and to examine whether it permits re-hearing in a decided criminal revision:
'A perusal of the provision shows that this Section empowers the High Court to exercise the powers of an Appellate Court under Section 423, 426, 427, 428, 338 and enhance the sentence.
Sub-Section 2 of this Section provides that :'No order under Section 1 shall be made to the prejudice of the accused unless he had an opportunity of being heard either personally or by pleader in his own defence.'
2. Mr. Sethi relied on this provision and his reliance appears to be grossly mis-placed on the face of it. This is so because sub-section (2) of Section 439 provides a safeguard of giving an opportunity of being heard to the accused in cases where the enhancement of sentence is involved in exercise of the powers under Section 439-1. The present case is not surely covered by this provision at all. Because, in the present case, the Trial Court had closed the petitioner's defence evidence as he had approached the Court three years after the closure of such evidence under Section 540 Cr.P.C. Therefore, it cannot be said or held that petitioner who was absent before the Court on the date his criminal revision was decided, was in any way prejudiced by the decision in the revision petition on merits in which this Court in exercise of revision jurisdiction, had only to ascertain and examine whether any illegality or impropriety had been committed by the Trial Court in closing his defence evidence. The other aspect of the matter is that there is no review permissible in criminal proceedings and Section 369 operates as a clear bar for the Court against altering a judgment once it had been signed except to correct a clerical error. As such, in case, re-hearing is granted in criminal matters after the judgment has been rendered, pronounced and signed, it would not only violate the bar imposed by Section 369 but also erode the finality and sanctity of the judgment.
3. Mr. Sethi's reliance on the Full Bench judgment of this Court reported in 1981 JKLR, 353 : (1982 Cri LJ 297) is also wide off the mark. Because this judgment deals with a very peculiar situation to permit re-hearing where a Trial Court's order which is found to be a nullity, is confirmed by the High Court. The rationale and the reason is that a trial Court judgment which is a nullity, can render the confirmation of judgment by the High Court also a nullity and that's why, a re-hearing is permitted in such cases by a judicial precedent. The present case cannot be said to be belonging to this genre because it is nobody's case that the closure of the evidence by the Trial Court was an order which was a nullity in the eyes of law. Therefore, the principle laid-down in this judgment cannot be applied to the present case,
4. As regards Supreme Court's judgment which makes a reference to an application for review in a murder trial, this power is exercised by the Supreme Court as the Court of the final resort. But this cannot be cited as a precedent where the State Cr. P.C. imposes a specific bar against review in a criminal case and where the aggrieved party has a remedy to file an appropriate proceeding before a superior Court.
5. In the result, 1 find no inept in this CMP which is dismissed.