NANAK CHAND Vs. PANCHAYAT SAMITI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE respondent-Panchayat Samiti, Nuh, filed an application under Section 52 of the Punjab Panchayat Samities and Zila Parishads Act, 1961, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) for the recovery of certain amount from Tek Ram as the principal debtor in the light of an agreement which he had entered into with the Panchayat Samiti for the removal of carcass of dead animal in the area of that Samiti and Nank Chand and Tej Ram petitioners as sureties for Tek Ram in the Court of Sub Divisional Magistrate, Nuh. As a result of the enquiry that followed, he came to the conclusion vide his order dated March 20, 1985, that the said amount could not be recovered from the petitioners as there was no legal evidence supporting the same. This order of the Magistrate was successfully impugned by the Panchayat Samiti before the Additional Sessions Judge, Gurgaon, under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The said Court while setting aside the order of the Magistrate accepted the prayer made by the Samiti to recover the amount in question from them. The petitioners now impugn this order of the Additional Sessions Judge on the solitary ground that, in the given facts and circumstances of the case, no such revision petition was maintainable before him against the order of the Magistrate under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Having heard the learned Counsel for the parties at some length, I find considerable merit in the contention of the learned Counsel.

(2.) IT is not disputed before me by either of the parties in the light of the observations made by a learned Single Judge of this Court in Shri Chao Khan v. The Sub Divisional Magistrate, Ferozepur Jhirka and another, 1983(II) L.L.R. 563, that in the absence of any procedure prescribed under the Act for fixing the quantum of amount due to the Samiti, the Magistrate could go into the validity of the amount or the quantum of the amount claimed by the Samiti and he was perfectly within his jurisdiction when he said that the amount in question could not be recovered from the petitioners in the absence of any legal evidence for fixation of liability of them. All that is contended on behalf of the respondent-Samiti however, is that once it is conceded, as has been done by the learned Counsel for the petitioners, that the Magistrate has the jurisdiction to go into the validity of the demand raised by the Smiti against them, the entire proceedings before the Magistrate were in the nature of judicial proceedings before an inferior Criminal Court and in the light of that the revision was maintainable before the Additional Sessions Judge under Section 397, Criminal Procedure Code. This submission of the learned Counsel for the respondent-Samiti, however, does not impress me at all.

(3.) AFTER analysing the scope of jurisdiction of the Magistrate under Section 234 of the Regulation referred to above, their Lordships concluded the matter thus :