PRABHU CHAWLA Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN & ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) First we take up appeals of Prabhu Chawla and Jagdish Upasane and ors. as these two criminal appeals seek to assail a common order dated 02.04.2009 whereby the High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan at Jodhpur dismissed the petitions preferred by the appellants under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for brevity 'Cr.P.C.'). High Court held the petitions to be not maintainable in view of judgment of Rajasthan High Court in the case of Sanjay Bhandari v. State of Rajasthan 2009 (1) CrLR (Raj.) 282 (impugned in the other connected appeal) holding that availability of remedy under Section 397 Cr.P.C. would make a petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. not maintainable.

(3.) While considering all these matters at the SLP stage, on 05.07.2013, a Division Bench found the impugned order of the High Court to be against the law stated in Dhariwal Tobacco Products Ltd. and Ors. v. State of Maharashtra and another(2009) 2 SCC 370. In that case the Division Bench concurred with the proposition of law that availability of alternative remedy of criminal revision under Section 397 Cr.P.C. by itself cannot be a good ground to dismiss an application under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. But it noticed that a later Division Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Mohit alias Sonu and another v. State of Uttar Pradesh and another(2013) 7 SCC 789 apparently held to the contrary that when an order under assail is not interlocutory in nature and is amenable to the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court then there should be a bar in invoking the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. In view of such conflict, these cases were directed to be placed before the Hon'ble Chief Justice for reference to a larger Bench and that is how the matters are before this Bench for resolving the conflict.