CHUNCHU NARAYANA Vs. KARRAPATI KESAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By his order in M. C. No. 13 of 1950 dated 14-3-1950, the District Magistrate of Gooty held that the respondent in this Court, should be allowed to take possession of the land in dispute and retain the same till a competent civil Court decides the dispute between the parties; and aggrieved by that order the petitioners have moved this Court to revise the order of the District Magistrate.

(2.) The respondent presented a petition under Section 145, Criminal P. C., before the District Magistrate of Gooty on 15-10-1949 and it was alleged that on 3-10-1949 he. had been wrongfully dispossessed by the opposite party and wanted the Court to decide the question of possession and put him back in possession. A preliminary order under Section 145 (4), Criminal P.C., was passed on 25-1-1950, that is more than two months not only after the date of dispossession but after the date of presentation of the petition. On the finding that the petitioner in the lower Court was entitled to possession, the learned District Magistrate, following two decisions of this Court, held that the two months period contemplated in the proviso to Section 145 (4), Criminal P. C., should be deemed to be from the date when the petition was presented and therefore directed restoration of possession to the respondent in this'Court. Somasundaram J. before whom the criminal revision petition first came on for hearing, finding that there is a conflict of decision on this point in this Court referred the matter to be heard by a Bench.

(3.) Section 145 (1), Criminal P. C., contemplates that when any of the classes of Magistrates mentioned therein is satisfied from a police report or other information that a dispute likely to cause a breach of the peace exists concerning any land or water or the boundaries thereof, within the local limits of his jurisdiction, he shall make an order in writing, stating the grounds of hia being so satisfied, and requiring the parties concerned in such dispute to attend his Court in person or by pleader, within a time to be fixed by such Magistrate and to put in written statements of their respective claima as respects the fact of actual possession of the subject of dispute. This is the preliminary order contemplated by the section and when such preliminary order has been passed and served in the manner provided by the Code, on the date on which the petition stands posted for hearing, the Magistrate shall, without reference to the merits of the claims of any of such parties to a right to possess the subject of dispute, peruse the statements so put in, hear the parties, receive all such evidence as may be produced by them, consider the effect of such evidence, take such further evidence as he thinks necessary, and, if possible, decide whether any and which of the parties was in possession at the date of the preliminary order passed by him; and the proviso lays down that if it appears to the Magistrate that any party was, within two months next before the date of such order, being forcibly and wrongfully dispossessed, he may treat the party so dispossessed, as if he had been in possession at such date. The words "at the date of the order" in Sub-section (4), refers to the order contemplated in Sub-section (1), i. e., the preliminary order and the meaning to be given to the words "the date of such order" in the proviso, is the question for consideration.