Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
The single most examinable limit on revision is the bar on interlocutory orders, and the Sanhita does not define an interlocutory order. Without a test, the bar is unusable: every order made before judgment can be described as a step in a pending proceeding, and on that description no order would ever be revisable.
Mohit supplies the test, and it supplies it with worked examples on both sides of the line.
Facts
The question was whether the order under challenge was an interlocutory order, so that revision to the High Court was barred by the sub-section.
Held
The Court observed that any order which substantially affects the right of the accused, or decides certain rights of the parties, cannot be said to be an interlocutory order so as to bar a revision to the High Court against that order.
Orders summoning witnesses, adjourning cases, passing orders for bail, calling for reports and such other steps in aid of the pending proceeding may no doubt amount to interlocutory orders, against which no revision would lie. But orders which are matters of moment, and which affect or adjudicate the rights of the accused or a particular aspect of the trial, cannot be said to be interlocutory so as to be outside the purview of the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court.
Reasoning
The test is one of effect on rights, not of timing. An order made in the middle of a trial is not interlocutory because it is in the middle of a trial; it is interlocutory because it does no more than keep the proceeding moving. Once an order decides something — a right of a party, or an aspect of the trial itself — it has done the kind of work that the revisional jurisdiction exists to supervise, and the bar has no reason to apply to it.
The two lists in the holding are the usable part. Learn them as a pair: summoning a witness, adjourning, granting bail and calling for a report on one side; matters of moment which adjudicate rights on the other. A problem question is answered by placing the order on one of the two lists and saying why.
Exam use
Use it in any question on the scope of revision, on the bar in BNSS s. 438(2) (CrPC s. 397(2)), or on whether a particular order may be challenged in revision.
Read it with the other limits the chapter carries: revision examines correctness, legality, propriety and regularity; only one forum may be approached, since an application by a person to the High Court or to the Sessions Judge bars a further application by that person to the other; and a finding of acquittal may not be converted into a conviction. Read it also with Raj Kapoor v. State, since a party met by the interlocutory bar will usually invoke the inherent power instead.
It does not decide the merits of any such order, and it does not give a closed definition of an interlocutory order — it gives a test and illustrations, which is why the illustrations matter.
The decision was given on the 1973 Code; the bar is now in BNSS s. 438(2), in the same terms.