RATILAL JASRAJ Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for transfer of the proceedings pending against the petitioner in the Court of the Additional District Magistrate, Ahmednagar, to a competent Court in any other district. The proceedings in question have been instituted against the petitioner under Section 110 (e) and (f), Criminal P. C. and the case in which these proceedings are pending before the learned Additional District Magistrate at Nagar is Criminal Case No. 36 of 1955 on his file. The petitioner's grievance is that the course which the proceedings have taken before the learned Additional District Magistrate and the attitude adopted by him have created a reasonable apprehension In his mind that he will not get a fair trial before the learned Magistrate.

(2.) IN dealing with transfer applications, it is essential for the petitioner to satisfy us that he entertains an apprehension that his case would not be fairly tried by the learned trial Magistrate land that his apprehension is such as can be regarded by us as reasonable. Having regard to the several allegations which had been made by the petitioner in respect of the conduct of the proceedings, Shah and Vyas JJ. had called for a report from the learned Magistrate when they gave rule to the petitioner, since then the report has been received. When the attention of Shah and Vyas JJ. was drawn to the concluding portion of this report on 12-12-1955, they have strongly disapproved of the conduct of the learned Magistrate inasmuch as he purported to advise this Court as to what orders should be passed on the application itself. The learned Magistrate has sent an exhaustive report and at the end he has purported to pronounce, his own judgment on the merits of the transfer application by observing that there was no substance in the transfer application and so it may be rejected. We are really surprised that a senior Magistrate who holds the position of an Additional District Magistrate Should have allowed his enthusiasm to affect his report to such an extent that he should have lost sight of the limits which his report had to observe in making his comments on the application in question. As Shah J. has pointed out, when we send for reports in such cases all that we want to know from the Magistrates in question is their version of the facts which are alleged by the petitioner in respect of the conduct of proceedings pending before the said Magistrates: and it was, we think, absolutely necessary that the learned Magistrate In making this report should have confined it to the statement of facts so far as he was concerned. The fact that the learned Magistrate has stepped beyond the legitimate limits within which the report had to be made has naturally given an argument to Mr. Kavalekar that the learned Magistrate seems to be keen on retaining this case on his file and care must always be taken to see that such an impression is not created in the mind of the litigant by the attitude taken up by the learned trial Magistrate. That, however, is only an incidental aspect of the matter.

(3.) THE learned Government Pleader has, on the other hand, referred us to some expression used in the petition and he contends that expressions of this type should be severely condemned. We have no difficulty in accepting the learned Government Pleader's contention that we must always insist upon petitions of this, kind to be presented in proper parliamentary language. Mr. Kavalekar for the petitioner has immediately agreed that some of the words used in the petition are entirely out of place and the only extenuating circumstance to which he has invited our attention is the fact that the petition has been drafted, by the party in person who is a layman and who has perhaps not observed the restraint which a draft by his learned Advocate would necessarily have observed. We should, therefore, like to make it clear to the petitioner that he should not be under the impression that the use of strong vituperative language adds strength to the arguments he has to urge in support of such an application. Strong language which is unworthy to be used in a Court of law should never find a place in petitions to the Court. That is why we wish to express our disapproval of some of the statements made by the petitioner and since Mr. Kavalekar as promptly and in an unqualified manner agreed to delete those expressions we propose to say nothing more in that behalf.