VISHWA NATH Vs. NEMO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) - (December 19. 1969). This is anapplication under Section 526 of the Code of Criminal Procedure The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has placed precise reliance on clause (e) of sub-section (1) of the said Section. That provision is an enabling one and is to the effect that whenever it is made to appear to the High Court that an order of transfer is expedient for the ends of justice or is required to be made by any provision of the Criminal Procedure Code then a case may by ordered to betransferred from the Court trying it to another Court. Clause (e) which has been referred to above runs into two parts The first part indicates that the High Court may be pursuaded on good reasoning that it would be expedient for the ends of justice to transfer the case. The second part of the foregoing clause contains a kind of compulsion which is to the effect that if any provision contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure indicates that a transfer is merited then the case may be ordered to be transferred. No provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure is pleaded in terms whare of counsel may have been able to submit that the case deserves to be t"ansferr3d. It is urged that it is expedient in the interest of justice to transfer the case.

(2.) A transfer application was first dealt with by the learned Sessions Judge. Kinaaur. The allegations made before him have been repeated before this Court. Those allegations are two fold. The first is that Kumarsain is a place where no local lawyer is available and lawyers have to go to that place either from Theog or from some other nearby place where they may be available. It is an acknowledged fact that the Court of the Magistrate Second Class does function at Kumarsain- If the first contention is accepted that no lawyers are available at Kumarsaia and for that reason the case may be transferred then instead of causing the transfer of this case every criminal case which is being tried at Kumarsain would merit to be transferred from that Court. I do not see any reason why that Court should not be abolished merely because no lawyer is available there. I have deliberately used the foregoing phraseology in the preceding sentence in order to clearly expose the absurdity involved in this type of contention

(3.) I must observe that in these particular areas of this country which are hilly areas and which are populated by poor people cheap and expeditious justice ought to be available at their door. I am inclined to imagine that a time might arrive when the Courts of justice may be sprinkled over these areas at smaller geographical stretches than those at which they are available today, ft is the citizens' right to get justice expeditiously and newer home without being put to greater expense exertion and delay. No democratic set up c"n provide a comfortable answer to the sovereign will of the people if their bare necessity of achieving expeditious disposal of their civil and criminal disputes is not made available to them. No Court of law. much less this Court can afford to sustain a negation of democracy. The first contention raised, therefore, stands repelled. So long as the Court of competent jurisdiction is available at any place it cannot be shorn .of its powers on flimsy pretexts.