KOCHUKUTTA MENON Vs. VAREED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition to revise an order passed by the Additional Sessions Judge at Parur under S.436 Crl. P. C., setting aside an order passed by the First Class Magistrate at Alwaye, discharging the six accused, who are the revision-petitioners, under S.253 (1) Crl. P. C., in respect of an offence under S.499 I. P. C., said to have been committed by them. The facts so far as they are necessary for the present purpose, may be briefly stated. A petition Ext. P4 was preferred by one Cheerakattil Vaidyan to the Manjapra Panchayat, of which the first accused was the President and the other accused were the members, imputing criminal acts, as having been perpetrated by the complainants brother, his wife and children. Upon this, the Panchayat passed resolution Ext. P2 on the 8th January, 1955, condemning the complainants brother and the members of his family describing them as Pullathans. A copy of this resolution was communicated by the first accused acting as the President of Panchayat, with covering letters, Exts. P5 and P6, to the various authorities concerned with law and order in the State, including the Chief Minister and the District Magistrate at Trichur. Specific reference was made to the complainant also in Exts. P5 and P6, although there was no such reference in Ext. P2. On the 16th January, 1955, a meeting was said to have been arranged under the auspices of the Panchayat, at which accused 2 and 5 were two of the speakers. The complainants case was, that Ext. P2 and the speeches made by accused 2 and 5 were defamatory, and he therefore instituted the complaint, which has led to these proceedings.

(2.) The trial Magistrate recorded the evidence for the complainant, and generally examined the accused, and discharged them on the findings, that Ext. P2 contained nothing defamatory concerning the complainant, that the contents of the speeches delivered had not been proved, and that in any event, the alleged defamatory statements were covered by exceptions 8 and 9 to S.499 I. P. C. In revision, the learned Additional Sessions Judge did not record specific findings, in view of the further enquiry which he was directing the Magistrate to make; at the same time, he indicated his view, that the findings as recorded were open to attack. He also thought, that the action of the Magistrate in not proceeding to frame a charge against the accused was not justifiable.

(3.) The scope of interference in revision with an order of discharge under S.436 Crl. P. C. is very limited. I shall advert only to a few of the cases to which my attention was invited by the learned counsel for the revision-petitioners. It was held by the Travancore-Cochin High Court in Cheriath Devasia v. Skaria Chacko ILR 1950 T.C. 643 that a revisional Court may interfere with an order of discharge, if it is patently foolish or perverse or perfunctory. As held in Sheo Prasad Ramdas v. Emperor AIR 1938 Nagpur 394 a revision is competent when the order of discharge is manifestly unreasonable or foolish or prima facie incorrect or perverse. If the Magistrate has not applied his mind to the case, the revisional court can interfere, Durga Das Radhakrishnan v. Emperor, AIR 1934 Bombay 48. These are the main principles on which a revisional court may exercise its jurisdiction. It has to be examined, how far the learned Judge had kept these principles in view in directing a further enquiry.