KALA SINGH Vs. GURDEV KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE accused Petitioner has sought to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of this Court to quash the order of the Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Jullundur, dated September 11,1982, whereby he has been, summoned to face trial under Sections 494/ 109, Indian Penal Code.

(2.) WITHOUT going into the details of the grounds taken up in the petition, in substance the allegations therein amount to this. That a similar complaint under Sections 494/109, Indian Penal Code, on the same facts was filed by the Respondent against the Petitioner and other persons in the Court of Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Nakodar, on 3.9.1981. This complaint was dismissed in default by the said Court on 17.11.1981 and that order was not challenged by the Respondent. It is alleged that the Respondent has filed second complaint against the Petitioner and Ors. on the same grounds at Jullundur. It has been pleaded that the second complaint does not lie and the summoning order is bad in the eye of law and is liable to be quashed. In support of these contentions, reliance is placed on decisions in Bindeshwari Prasad Singh v. Kali Singh : A.I.R. 1977 S.C. 2432 and Prem Pal Singh Rawat v. Ram Babu, 1982 (1) C.L.R. 196. Notice of this petition was issued to the Respondent, on whose behalf Mr. Sudarshan Singh, Advocate, has appeared and he has vehemently opposed this petition on the ground that the Respondent had filed a complaint against the Petitioner and Ors. under Sections 494/109, Indian Penal Code, which is a warrant case and second complaint can be filed and the doctrine autre fo is acquit does not apply in this case and to buttress this argument, reliance is placed on a decision in Manmath Manidharprasad Vyas v. Chunilal Maganlal Patel : 1973 Cri.L.J. 799.

(3.) AFTER hearing the parties' counsel, I am of the considered view that the present petition has to fail as being incompetent. It is an admitted fact that revision petition filed by Smt. Ratni, who is the mother of the Petitioner, had been, dismissed by the order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, which clearly indicates that the merits of the case had been gone into at a considerable length. A concurrent jurisdiction is vested under the law in the High Court and the Sessions Judge to exercise powers of revision. It is provided in Section 397(3) of the Code that if an application for revision is made by any person either to the High Court or to the Sessions Judge, no further application by the same person shall be entertained by other of them. Obviously second revision petition could not have been filed in this case and that is why a recourse to Section 482 of the Code seems to have been made by the Petitioner However, such a course cannot be permitted in the grab of an application filed under some other provision of law. In this view I am fortified by a decision in Amar Nath and Ors. v. State of Haryana, (1977) 4 Cr.L.T. 395.