ADHIR KUMAR RAY CHAUDHURI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question for consideration in this appeal is whether the court of Sessions that tried and convicted this Appellant had jurisdiction to try the cases. There were five charges on which the Appellant was tried--one under Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code for; an offence of forgery said to have been committed at 77, Kailash Basu Street, Calcutta, another for an offence under Section 471 read with Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code for user at the same address, namely, 77, Kailash Basu Street, Calcutta, of a forged document as genuine, and for three other offences under Section 414 of the Indian Penal Code and two under Section 37& of the Indian Penal Code said to have been committed at places within the jurisdiction of the court of Sessions, 24-Pargands. It appears that immediately before the trial commenced before the learned Assistant Sessions Judge an application was filed on behalf of this Appellant stating that the court had no jurisdiction to try the offence under Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Assistant Sessions Judge rejected this contention and held that the court of Sessions at Alipore had jurisdiction to try all the offences, though some of the offences were said to have been committed within the local limits of the Ordinary Original Criminal Jurisdiction of the High Court of Calcutta.

(2.) It is quite clear that two of the five offences, which were triable by a court of Sessions, namely, the offence under Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code and one under Section 471, read with Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code, were both alleged to have been committed at a place which is outside any Sessions division in this State of West Bengal and is at a place within the Ordinary Original Criminal Jurisdiction of the High Court of Calcutta.

(3.) The position, therefore, is that a court of Sessions at Alipore has tried five offences, two of which are triable only by the High Court in the exercise of its Ordinary Original Criminal Jurisdiction. For, Section 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that every offence shall ordinarily be inquired into and tried by a court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction; it was committed. There is no provision in ch. XV which deals with the jurisdiction of the criminal courts in inquiries and trials under which the court of Sessions at Alipore could have any jurisdiction to try these offences which were committed within the local limits of the High Court's Ordinary Original Criminal Jurisdiction. Mr. Sinha, appearing for the State, tried to convince us that, as all the five offences were committed in the course of the same transaction and three of the offences were committed within the jurisdiction of the courts at Alipore, that court had also a jurisdiction to try offences committed outside that jurisdiction. This is clearly against the provisions of Section 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and, as there is no provision in the sections that follow in ch. XV for the exercise of such jurisdiction by the Alipore courts, we are unable to accept his contention. Our conclusion is that the Alipore Sessions court was not competent to try the accused for the offence under Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code and for the offence under Section 471 read with Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code.