HAR PRASAD Vs. HANS RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON the 3rd of April, 1961 applicant filed a complaint before a Magistrate First Class at Meerut on the allegations that he was the Bhumidhar of plots Nos. 836, 837 and 821 of village Shafiabad, that in pursuance of a conspiracy amongst themselves, the opposite parties with a view to cause loss to the applicant got a fictitious sale-deed in respect of the aforesaid plots executed and registered in favour of opposite party No. 1 on 9th January 1901 for alleged consideration of Rs. 2000/-and on the basis of that forged deed opposite party No. 2 moved an application for mutation of plots before the Tahsildar Hapur and thereby they had all committed offences under Sections 467 and 471 I. P. C.

(2.) THE learned Magistrate was of opinion that as the allegations made in the complaint indicated that the alleged offences were committed in relation to a proceeding before the court of the Tahsildar, the complaint was barred by Section 195 of the Code or Criminal Procedure. He, therefore, dismissed it without framing any charge against the accused. The applicant came up in revision against that order before the learned Sessions Judge but it was dismissed. Hence this revision.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the applicant has several contentions in support of this revision. He has argued that a Tahsildar dealing with a mutation case is not a revenue court within the meaning of Section 195 of the Code and that as the offence of forgery was complete when a fictitious sale-deed was executed and registered, the subsequent filing of an application by one of the opposite parties on its basis for mutation before the Tahsildar should not have influenced the courts below for holding that the complaint was barred under Section 195 of the Code. Learned counsel has further argued that in any case as opposite parties Nos. 2 and 8 were not parties to the mutation proceedings, the order of the courts below holding the complaint barred against them also under Section 195 Cr. P. C. is not sustainable. Reliance was placed by the learned counsel on a decision of the Privy Council in the case of Nirman Singh v. Rudra Partap Narain Singh, reported in AIR 1926 PC 100. I, however, find no force in these contentious.