MALLAPPA BASAPPA KURNAHALLU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision with reference to a complaint under Section 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The First Glass Magistrate has gone in great detail into the title of the property in dispute. Indeed the twenty-five typed pages of his judgment are mainly concerned with this question of title. In the result he held that the civil Court was the proper tribunal to decide the real dispute between the parties. He also found that the Hindu family in question was still joint, and that the lands and houses concerned in this proceeding were jointly in the possession and management of the applicant and opponents, and that consequently Sections 145 and 146 did not apply.

(2.) The grievance now urged before us by the applicant is that the learned Magistrate should not have gone into the question of title, but should have concerned himself only with the question of possession, and that he has consequently Tpproached the case from a wrong angle, as a considerable degree I accept that argument. In the view I personally take Section 145 is frequently misapplied in practice, and Magistrates in criminal Courts occupy a large amount of time in going into questions of title, with which they are not concerned, and which ought properly to be decided by the civil Courts of the land.

(3.) My brother Coyajee has pointed out that Sub-section (4) of Section 145 recognizes by the use of the words "if possible" that the Magistrate may be unable to decide a case in the summary manner contemplated by that sub-section so as to say who is in possession of the land. Accordingly in the present case we have either got a definite finding that both the parties were in possession of the land, or alternatively the Magistrate has not been able to determine that point. But it is clear that he considers the dispute to be one for the civil Court.