BHAGWANTI Vs. ATTAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case discloses a lamentable stage of affairs in regard to the manner in which some of the Magistrates in Delhi deal with a criminal complaint. On 4th December 1965. Atlar Singh applied to the District Magistrate, Delhi. stating that Smt. Bhagwanti and her sons Shri Prabh Singh and Sujit Singh had been pressing him to vacate the premises occued by him as their tenant in Sabzi Mandi, Delhi. On has failure to do so, they had threatened to get a false criminal case filed against him through somebody outside Delhi. A case had since been intstituted against him under section 506, Indian Penal Code, and nonjbailable warrants for his arrest had been received at Delhi and Attar Singh was released on bail by the Additional District Magistrate, Dalhi, on 29 th November 1965 with the direction to appear on 15th December 1965 in the Court of Shri 0. P. Sharma, Magistrate 1st Class, Karala Camp, Pishore District Shiv Puri (M.P). This ca?e was alleged to be absolutely false and it was requested that an enquiry or investigation be held in the matter in order to save Attar Singh from the clutches of the people. No provision of law under which this application purported to be presented was mentioned either in the heading or elsewhere in the body of the application. On 6th December, 1965, Shri R. Jain, Additional District Magistrate, passed an order in the margin of the application marking it to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Subzi M indi, to enquire into the case with particular reference to the following passage in the application :-

(2.) On 4th March, 1966, it appears that Attar Singh filed an application seeking warrants for the production of Surjit Singh. He prayed that one copy of the warrants be given to him dasti and one to be executed in the normal course. At the margin of this application again I find an order signed by Shri R. Jain, Additional District Magistrate, to the following effect : - "Give Dasti on the address given." This order almost conclusively shows that the learned Additional District Magistrate had put the application under section 195(l)(b). Criminal Procedure Code, in a cold storage and his staff was not at all dealing with the matter with the expected care. attention and conscisntious sense of responsibility. On 8th February, i966, the counsel for Prabh Singh had inspected the records of the case and on 23rd March, 1966, a revision was presented on behalf of the three accused persons in the Court of the learned Session. Judge, Delhi, On 3rd June, .1966, the learned Additional Sessions Judga, disposing of the revision, referred the proceedings of the case to this Court with a recommendation that the same may be quashed, being without jurisdiction. It is in these circumstances that this case ha- been posted for hearing before me today.

(3.) The patent illegality of the case would be obvious from the fact that the learned counsel for the complainant (respondent in this Court) has, at the outset, very fairly and frankly expressed his inability to support the order of the learned Additional District Magistrate registering the case under section 211, Indian Penal Code, against Smt. Bhagwanti and her sons. Section 195, Code of Criminal Procedure, so for as relevant for our purpose, lays down in the clearest possible terms that no Court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under any of the sections mentioned therein, including section 211, Indian Penal Code, when such offence is alleged to have been committed in or in relation to any proceeding in any Court except on the complaint in waiting of such Court or of some other Court to which such Court is subordinate. It is a matter for regret that the learned Additional District Magistrate should have been so completely ignorant of this elementary and fundamental provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure ; and what is more regrettable is the fact that even when a specific application was presented to him pointedly bringing to his notice this provision of law, the learned Magistrate did not case to satisfy himself if what he was doing was lawful and if he had jurisdiction to take cognizance of this case and to proceed with it. This betrays an attitude of mind which is clearly incompatible with the judicious sense of responsibility and devoted attention required of judicial officer disposing of criminal cases entailing punishments by way of imprisonment.