STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Vs. GANPAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a reference by Mr. P. S. Malvankar, Sessions Judge, Akola, recommending that the order of commitment made by the Civil Judge and judicial Magistrate, First Class, Murtizapur, Mr. A. S. Korane, should be quashed and that the Magistrate should be directed to proceed with the case and dispose it of accordng to law.

(2.) ON a complaint filed before the trying Magistrate by one Bhaskar Shankar, the eleven opponents were tried for offences punishable under sections 120-B ,147,455,341 and 440 of the Indian Penal Code. It was the complanant's case that one Subhash was the tenant of the house in dispute. He died on 23-3-1960. Since there were no known heirs or relations of the deceased, the police took possession of his property which was lying unclaimed in the house and thereafter the said Bhaskar Shankar took the house on rent form 1-6-1960. The name of the owner of the house is not known and he has not been examined, but his Gumashta Ramkrishna has given evidence that the house was given on rent to the complainant Bhaskar Shankar. According to the complainant, the opponents attempted to dispossess him by force and unlawfully and the complainant gave a report to the police on 10-6-1960. Thereafter, on 14-6-1960 all the opponents came to the house and in pursuance of a common object, pushed aside the complainant and his brother, and the opponent No. 1 Ganpat broke open the lock with a hammer and a chisel and the other opponents threatened the complainant. They unlawfully entered the house and threw out all the household belongings of the complainant though the complainant was in lawful occupation of the house. The trying Magistrate examined six prosecution witnesses and took the view that the offences disclosed were of a serious nature and that in his opinion, therefore, they should be tried by a Court of Session. Accordingly, he drew up a committal order dated 24-10-1960 and committed the opponents to stand their trial in the Court of Session.

(3.) WHEN the matter came before the learned Session Judge, an application was preferred before him signed by both the Public Prosecutor and the advocate appearing on behalf of the accused praying that the committal order be quashed and that a recommendation should be made to this Court to that effect and praying that the case should be heard and decided by the trying Magistrate himself. The learned Sessions Judge has accepted that application and made a recommendation as above. The Sessions Judge has quoted in extenso the reasoning of the trying Magistrate and then taken up each of the individual sections under which the offences were alleged to have been committed by the opponents to show that the view which the Magistrate took was somewhat unnecessarily serious and that the offences were not as they were made out to be. In doing so, the learned Sessions Judge has expressed his views upon the evidence recorded before the Magistrate which might have been avoided. Apart from this, the Sessions Judge has held: