AMEER Vs. DIVISIONAL MAGISTRATE VARANASI S

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS rit petition has come up before us upon reference made by a learned single udge of this Court.

(2.) UNDER Section 53 of the U. P. Panchayat Raj Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act), each of the petitioners was ordered by the Nyaya Panchayat of village Khewali, district Varanasi, to ex ecute a personal bond in the sum of Rs. 50 with one surety of like amount for keeping the peace for a period of fifteen days. The order of the Nyaya Panchayat provided that in case of default in ex ecuting the required bond a penalty of Rs. 5 per day shall be imposed on each defaulting petitioner. Against that order the petitioners filed an application in re vision under Section 89'of the Act before the Sub- Divisional Magistrate Varanasi (S) who dismissed it on the ground that no revision lay. The view that the Magis trate took was that an order under Sec tion 53 is not an order in a "criminal case" as denned in the Act and is. ac cordingly, not revisable under Sec. 89. In taking this view he followed the decision of Mehrotra, J. in Girwar Singh v. Sub-Divisional Magistrate Writ No. 753 of 1954 decided on March 11, 1955 (All). By means of this petition the petitioners pray for a writ in the nature of certiorari quashing the orders of the Nyaya Pancha yat and the Sub-Divisional Magistrate. The learned single Judge before whom the writ petition originally came up for hearing found some difficulty in accepting the opinion expressed by Mehrotra, J. in the above decision and that led to the reference.

(3.) THE expressions "criminal case", "civil case" and "revenue case" have all been defined in Section 2 of the Act. Ac cording to the definition, "Criminal case" means a criminal proceeding in respect of i an offence triable by a Nyaya Panchayat I Certainly, a proceeding under Section 53 cannot be said to be a proceeding in res pect of an offence triable by a Nyaya PanchaVat and if the revisional power of Sub- Divisional Magistrate is regarded as confined to a criminal case as denned in the Act the conclusion that an order under Section 53 is not revisable is cor rect. The question, however, is whether the revisional power can properly be re garded as so confined.