NARAYAN Vs. GOKULDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A complaint was filed on 18.8.1964 by Narayan against one Gokuldas and four others under sections 406, 420, 468 read with section 109, I.P.C., in the Court of Shri B.K. Dube, Additional District Magistrate, Indore. The complaint was in English. The said Additional District Magistrate returned the complaint asking the complainant to file the same in Hindi. The complainant is a Sindhi gentleman. He presented the same complaint again on the same day with an application which was also in English that the complaint may be entertained as it was convenient for him. The learned Magistrate refused to accept the complaint and passed an order that the Madhya Pradesh Official Languages Act, 1957, has made Hindi the only official language and no complaint in any other language could be accepted. He also held that Rule 15 of the High Court Rules did not entitle any person to file a complaint in English.

(2.) A revision petition was filed in the District Court. The first Additional Sessions Judge, Shri Tamotia, also agreed with the Additional District Magistrate that the Madhya Pradesh Official Languages Act, has prescribed Hindi as the language of the Courts throughout the State of Madhya Pradesh and Rule 15 of the Rules and Orders (Criminal) has also laid down that all petitions shall be written and presented in official language. He held that though discretion should have been normally used in favour of the complainant when the counsel and the petitioner were Sindhis, but he thought that it was not a fit case for using the discretion. According to the learned Additional Sessions Judge, when the complainant could get his complaint written in English, he could also get the complaint written in Hindi. He, therefore, dismissed the petition. Aggrieved by orders the complainant has now come in this Court in revision.

(3.) THE complaint deals with matters of accounts. The complainant is a Sindhi gentleman. He found it convenient to write the complaint in English. It is also clear from the order of the Additional Sessions Judge that the petitioner (complainant) was not conversant with Hindi which was not his mother tongue. The Magistrate concerned also was conversant, I am sure with English. Under section 3 of the Madhya Pradesh Official Languages Act, 1957, certain exceptions have been made as per Notification No. 2309XX -CC -Bhopal, dated the 31st July, 1958.