C P VEERAN Vs. KURUVILLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision is against the order passed by the District Magistrate, Palghat, refusing to implead the petitioners as complainants in a proceeding under S.133 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

(2.) The facts which gave rise to the proceedings are as follows: The people of Kannambra including the appellants complained by a mass petition against the obstruction to a public cart track through a plot of land which was being converted into a rubber estate. The alleged obstruction was caused by the purchasers of the land and their employees. After investigation, the Executive First Class Magistrate, Palghat, passed a conditional order under S.133 Criminal Procedure Code against the managing partner and two employees of the estate. They appeared and denied the public right. The case stood posted for the necessary enquiry under S.139A Criminal Procedure Code. It is at that stage that the impleading petition was filed. That application was disallowed by the learned Magistrate for the reason that the enquiry envisaged in S.139A is in the nature of an ex parte summary enquiry with a view to finding out whether there is prima facie evidence in support of the denial of the existence of a public right, and not an elaborate one to affirmatively establish the existence of the right and as such the petitioners had no right to come in at that stage. Reliance was placed on the case of Darsan Rau v. The State and others reported in AIR 1959 Patna p. 81 in support of this position.

(3.) It was argued on behalf of the revision petitioners that the decision relied upon by the learned Magistrate has only laid down that it is not for the Magistrate who is conducting an enquiry under S.139A to take the evidence of both sides and then to judge if the party against whom the order has been made has succeeded in establishing the non existence of the public right, and that the decision is no authority for the position that the persons at whose instance the proceedings were started have no locus standi to watch the proceedings and help the court to find whether there is reliable evidence in support of the denial of the existence of the right.