JAGMATI Vs. CAPT HARBANS SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an unfortunate litigation. The complainant -petitioner is a wife who is at loggers head with her husband. She filed a complaint in the court of a Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Ambala accusing her parents -in -law of the offence of criminal breach of trust under Section 406, Indian Penal Code, of her dowry articles. The learned Magistrate issued process against the accused -respondents and thereafter recorded the entire evidence led by the complainant. Vide order dated 4.9.1982, the accused -respondents were discharged. The learned Magistrate, while viewing the evidence led by the petitioner, took into account a Full Bench decision of this Court in Vinod Kumar Sethi and others v. State of Punjab and another, 1982(1) Chandigarh Law Reporter 638.

(2.) THE petitioner took the matter before the Additional Sessions Judge, Ambala in revision. By that time Vinod Kumar Sethi's case (supra) had been overruled by the Supreme Court in Pratibha Rani v. Suraj Kumar and another, 1985(1) Recent Criminal Reports 539 (SC) : 198 Criminal Appeals Reported 96. Despite the rule imported to view the evidence, the learned Additional Sessions Judge took the view that the scope of revision before him was a limited one and thus left the order of the learned Magistrate uninterfered with. This has given rise to the petitioner to approach this Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

(3.) IN nutshell, it is the order of the learned Magistrate which is under challenge, for the learned Additional Sessions judge has not in so many words projected his own view. The fact remains that the evidence of the petitioner was weighed in the light and authority of Vinod Kumar Sethi's case (supra) and since that judgment has been overruled, it is but fair that the learned Magistrate should reappraise the evidence and write a fresh order to do justice between the parties; as otherwise maintaining that order, based as it is on Vinod Kumar Sethi's case (supra) would be an abuse of the process of the court and would otherwise be manifestly unjust. Accordingly, both the orders, i.e. of the learned magistrate and that of the Additional Sessions Judge, Ambala, are set aside and the matter is remitted back to the learned Magistrate to examine the question of charge or otherwise on the evidence recorded by him. Parties through their counsel are directed to put in appearance before the learned Magistrate on 14th October, 1986.