M ABUBACKER KUNJU Vs. R THULASIDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A futile endeavour is being attempted to make a new jurisdiction. A learned single Judge of this court passed an order in exercise of the inherent powers of the High Court as envisaged in S.482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short 'the Code'). One of the parties thereto who is not satisfied with the order, now seeks to file an appeal in challenge of the order. His contention is that inherent power has been invoked in the exercise of High Court's original jurisdiction and hence an appeal can be maintained under S.5(1) of the Kerala High Court Act, 1958.

(2.) But the Registry of this court put up a query to the appellant to clarify whether such an appeal would lie. Counsel answered to it saying that "jurisdiction of the High Court under S.482 of the Code is equivalent to the jurisdiction under Art.226 of the Constitution of India, which is not appellate or revisional jurisdiction, but original jurisdiction and hence an appeal will lie". He, therefore, prayed for sending up the matter to the Division Bench for consideration of the question. Accordingly the Registry has sent it up.

(3.) Learned counsel repeated his contention during arguments. Till now the point is considered as settled since a Division Bench of this court (Raman Nayar, C. J. and Mathew, J.) has spoken about it (Sreedhara Kamath v. Guptha, 1970 KLT 941 ) holding that the order passed is in exercise of its original jurisdiction. But learned counsel feels that the said decision requires reconsideration in view of certain observations made in the judgment of the larger Full Bench in K.S. Das v. State of Kerala ( 1992 (2) KLT 358 ). Learned counsel invited our attention to Para.33 of the said decision which, according to him, contains enough support. But we could not discover anything from the said paragraph or even elsewhere in the decision having any bearing on the question.