Raj Kapoor v. State (1980)

Revision and the inherent power look like rivals. Revision is a defined jurisdiction with express limits — no interlocutory orders, one forum only, no acquittal converted into a conviction — and the inherent power is undefined. If the inherent power could be used wherever revision is barred, the limits on revision would mean nothing; if the limits on revision cut down the inherent power, the saving section would mean nothing.

Raj Kapoor decides which way that relationship runs, and it is the authority to cite whenever a question puts the two jurisdictions side by side.

The question before the Court was whether, where a power is exercised under s. 397 of the 1973 Code, the High Court could exercise those very powers under s. 482.

Distinguishing the High Court's power under s. 397 from its power under s. 482, Krishna Iyer J. observed that s. 397, or any of the provisions of the Code, will not affect the amplitude of the inherent power preserved by s. 482.

The inherent power is not conferred by the Code; it is saved by it. That is the step in the reasoning, and it explains the result: a provision which confers and limits a particular jurisdiction operates on that jurisdiction, and says nothing about a power that existed independently and which the Code expressly refrains from taking away.

The limit on the power is therefore internal rather than external — it lies in the purposes for which the inherent power exists, to give effect to an order under the Sanhita, to prevent abuse of the process of any court, or otherwise to secure the ends of justice — and not in the bars written into the revision sections.

Use it in any question on the scope of revision, on the bar against revision of interlocutory orders, or on the inherent powers of the High Court, and in problem questions where a party has approached the High Court after the revisional route is closed.

It disposes of the argument that the revision sections exhaust the High Court's supervisory authority. It does not hold that the inherent power is unlimited, it does not authorise its use as a substitute for an appeal, and it does not disturb the express prohibitions that govern revision itself — in particular that a finding of acquittal may not be converted into one of conviction, which is a bar on the revisional power under BNSS s. 442(3) (CrPC s. 401(3)).

Give the current numbering: calling for records in revision is BNSS s. 438 (CrPC s. 397), the High Court's powers of revision are BNSS s. 442 (CrPC s. 401), and the inherent power is saved by BNSS s. 528 (CrPC s. 482).