CHUNG PING YUNG Vs. AMIYA CHAKRABARTTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition for revision of an order of the Chief Presidency Magistrate, Calcutta, dated 25-2-1955 by which the learned Magistrate discharged the opposite parties from certain proceedings on the ground that they were not maintainable by reason of absence of sanction under Section 197, Criminal P. C.

(2.) On 1-12-1954, the petitioner filed a complaint in the Court of the Chief Presidency Magistrate, Calcutta, charging the opposite parties with having committed offences under Sections 330/109 and 323, Penal Code. The allegations briefly were that the petitioner had been arrested on 29-11-1954 from a house at Wellesley Street in connection with an investigation relating to the seizure of a considerable quantity of opium in the Kiddierpore docks. The petitioner was thereafter taken to the Customs House where he was detained and the opposite party No. 1, the Deputy Commissioner of Excise along with opposite party No. 2, Superintendent, Customs Preventive Service, came and pressed the petitioner to make a statement which might lead to further disclosures relating to the contraband opium that had been seized. Threats were held out and the petitioner having declined to furnish any information, he was severely assaulted with fist, blows and in diverse other ways. A further threat was held out that he would be beaten to death in the event of his refusal to supply the information which the opposite parties thought the petitioner had been withholding. The assaults and the threats took place on more than one occasion and the details of the assault need not further be set out in the context of the present Rule. On the 30th of November the petitioner was produced before the Chief Presidency Magistrate, Calcutta, when he was released on bail and it was then that the petitioner gave the details of the torture on him to the Magistrate who was shown the injuries that were said to have been sustained by the petitioner as a result of the assaults. Those injuries were examined at the Medical College Hospital and on 1-12-1954, the complaint was instituted against the opposite parties.

(3.) The learned Chief Presidency Magistrate examined the complainant and thought the complaint required to be tested and in that view directed a judicial enquiry which was held by another learned Magistrate. On 20-12-1954 the report of the enquiry was received by the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate who directed the issue of process against the opposite parties under Section 323, Penal Code holding in effect that in the circumstances disclosed the opposite parties could not plead Section 197, Criminal P. C. as a bar to the present prosecution.