JITU MAL Vs. KASTURI LAL,

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE sole point for decision in the present case is whether a complaint filed against a Sub -Inspector of Police in respect of certain defamatory statements which are alleged to have been made by the latter is barred by time on the ground that it was filed after the expiry of a period of three months from the date of the said reports.

(2.) THE facts of the case are fairly simple. On the 19th March 1948 one Surju appeared at the Police Station at Kaithal with the object of making a report under Section 395 of the Penal Code. The police declined to record the report. Undeterred by this refusal Surju reduced his grievances into writing submitted his complaint to the police and asked the police to supply a copy thereof. The police gave him a severe beating and kept him in unlawful confinement for a number of days. Surju decided to seek redress at the hands of a criminal Court and on the 24th March he lodged a formal complaint under Sections 323/343 of the Indian Penal Code against Sub -inspector Kasturi Lal and certain other police officers in the Court of the Sub -Divisional Magistrate at Kaithal. Two days later, that is on the 26th March, he submitted a representation to the Chief Minister of the Punjab and asked him to take the necessary action against the police officers concerned. Copies of this representation were sent to the Inspector -General of Police, the Deputy Inspector -General of Police, the Superintendent of Police the Deputy Superintendent of Police and to the Deputy Commissioner. Some of these complaints were sent to Sub -Inspector Kasturi Lal for report and on the 7th April 1948 he submitted a report to the Deputy Superintendent of Police in the course of which he made certain defamatory statements concerning the character and antecedents of one Jitu Mal, Mahajan at Kaithal, who is the petitioner in the present case. On the 11th February 1949 Jitu Mal filed a complaint under Section 500 of the Penal Code against Sub -Inspector Kasturi Lal in the Court of Mr. Gautam, a Magistrate of the first class at Karnal. The learned Magistrate came to the conclusion that the representations which were sent to the Inspector -General of Police and the other officers were merely complaints of a departmental and administrative nature against the conduct of a Sub -Inspector of Police, that the report submitted by Sub -Inspector Kasturi Lal in answer to the allegations contained in the said representations was a purely departmental report submitted by a government servant to his official superior, that the said report was submitted under the provisions of the Police Act of 1861, that a prosecution in respect of the imputations contained in the said reports should have commenced within a period of three months from the date of the said report and that as the complaint was lodged on the 11th February 1949 seven months after the expiry of the said period of three months the complaint was clearly barred by time under Section 42 of the Police Act. On these findings the learned Magistrate dismissed the petitioner's complaint under Section 203 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The learned Sessions Judge declined to interfere with this order and the petitioner has accordingly come to this Court in revision.

(3.) SECTION 42 of the Police Act provides that all actions and prosecutions against any person which may be lawfully brought for anything done or intended to be done under the provisions of this Act, or under the general police -powers hereby given shall be commenced within three months after the act complained of shall have been committed, and not otherwise. It is contended on behalf of the petitioner that two of the representations sent by him were addressed to the Inspector -General of Police and the Deputy Commissioner of Karnal, that the Inspector -General of Police exercises powers of a Magistrate under the provisions of Section 5 of the Police Act, that the Deputy Commissioner is obviously a District Magistrate of the District of Karnal, that the representations addressed to these two officers must be deemed to be complaints filed in the Court of two different Magistrates, that the copy of the representations sent to S.I., Kasturi Lal must be deemed to have been sent to him under Section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code, that the report of the 7th April submitted by S.I. Kasturi Lal must be deemed to have been submitted under the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure and not under the provisions of the Police Act. that the period of limitation prescribed in Section 42 of the Police Act cannot govern the case and consequently that the view taken by the learned Magistrate that the complaint is barred by time is wholly misconceived.