AJAIB SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS case was referred to this Bench by my brother Soni for a consideration of the point whether a revision petition is competent in the circumstances.

(2.) THE facts briefly are that on 9-3-1951, a Police party patrolling the area near the Indian border in Amritsar District took into possession a quantity of 'tilla' (gold lace) and four horses from a deserted place near a house. The Police party suspected that the gold lace had been collected at this place with the object of its. being smuggled out to Pakistan and the horses were intended for the persons who were to smuggle the gold lace to Pakistan. Nobody at the moment claimed the horses or the gold lace and they were kept by the Police as unclaimed property. On the 15th of march four persons, who are the petitioners before us, made five different applications to a magistrate at Amritsar claiming that the gold lace and the horses belonged to them and praying for the restoration of these things. The Magistrate called for a report from the Police and took evidence in support of the claim made by the petitioners. The Police were also allowed to produce witnesses. After considering the evidence produced by both parties the Magistrate came to the conclusion that the claim of the petitioners had not been substantiated. He, therefore, ordered that the horses and the gold lace should be forfeited to Government. The concluding portion of his order reads as follows : "therefore, the property in question is unclaimed and must be forfeited to the Government. Accordingly it is ordered that the four horses and the 'tilla' in question are forfeited and shall be auctioned in due course and the amount to be deposited in the Government Treasury. But the forfeited articles, i. e. the horses and 'tilla', are to remain as they are till the time for appeal against this order has expired. " no appeal was preferred against this order by the petitioners who were obviously the aggrieved parties, but a revision petition was presented directly to this Court, and the question at once arose whether in view of the wording of Section 524, Criminal P. C. , which provides for an appeal, a revision petition lies directly to this Court.

(3.) MR. Grover, who appeared on behalf of the petitioners, contended that the order of the trial magistrate was not an order under Section 524, Criminal P. C. , but an order under Section 523, and as orders under Section 523 were not appealable, the only way in which their correctness could be challenged was by way of revision. Another argument raised by him was that the magistrate had been guilty of a material irregularity of procedure and that, therefore, even though an appeal lay against the final order a revision petition was competent in order to set right the procedural irregularity.