SREE SING Vs. PANCHU SING

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition for revision of an order of a learned Magistrate discharging the opposite parties against whom a criminal prosecution under Sections 448, 880 or 341, Penal Code had been started. The case against the opposite parties was that one of them had entered certain premises which admittedly he owned but which had been let to the complainant. According to the complainant, he was the tenant of a room in a be use owned by one of the opposite parties for which the eomplainanf paid Rs. 11 per month and had been tenant since the year 1943. According to the complainant he left for his home in the Punjab in February 1947 and on returning to Calcutta on 21st March 1947, he found the opposite parties in possession of his room, the padlock of the door having been broken and all his things stolen. The opposite parties would not permit the complainant to enter the room.

(2.) IT is clear that before the opposite parties entered this room, one of them made an application to a learned Magistrate, The learned Magistrate of course could not authorise him to break open the lock and enter this room and he merely told him that he could do so at his own -risk. However, some policemen appear to have accompanied the opposite party when he broke open the padlock and opened the room.' There -was nothing secret or underhand in this act. The opposite party acted quite openly which -rather suggests his bena fides.

(3.) THE case for the opposite party was that the complainant was heavily in arrears with his rent and also that he had erected some structure elsewhere which he appeared to have done in order to live in it. The opposite party contended that his action was bena fide and could not possibly amount to a criminal trespass as suggested -by the prosecution.