JANARDAN PRASAD MANDAL Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole petitioner, Janardan Prasad Mandal said to be a District Prosecutor at Deoghar, has been found guilty under Section 228 of the Penal Code, read with Section 480 of the Criminal P.C., and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 200.00 or, in default, to undergo simple imprisonment for one month. This order of conviction and sentence was passed by Shri A.K. Chatterji, Sub-divisional Officer, Deoghar, on the 23rd July, 1968. His order shows that, while he was sitting in Court in the midst of a judicial proceeding, this petitioner

(2.) Mrs. D. Lall, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, has contended, and, in my opinion, rightly, that the mandatory provisions of Sections 480 and 481 of the CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, 1973 have not been followed in this case; and in that view of the matter, the order is illegal and must be set aside. The procedure to be followed in such cases is of a summary nature. The Court or the officer himself becomes the prosecutor and the prosecution witness. It is, therefore, necessary that, in such cases, the defence of the accused must always be ascertained. This has not been done in this case. Under Section 481 of the Criminal P. C, in every such case, "the Court shall record the facts "constituting the offence" and "the record shall show the nature and stage of the judicial proceeding in which the Court interrupted or insulted was sitting, and the nature of the interruption or insult." Of course, it may be said that the nature of interruption has been mentioned by the learned sub-divisional Officer when he says that by the shout of the lawyer his work was interrupted or he felt insulted; but he has not given the details as to what statements had been made by the petitioner so that others also may know whether they are derogatory in nature, or whether those statements had been made because the Court itself had remarked in an undignified manner. It is, therefore, clear that the facts constituting the offence are not ascertainable from the records of this case. The nature and stage of the judicial proceeding has also not been indicated, and one cannot say whether the learned Sub-divisional Officer was at that time doing some administrative work, or hearing arguments, or recording evidence, or any such thing. So, the impugned order suffers from this infirmity also.

(3.) It is also apparent from the records that the sub-divisional officer and the District Prosecutor, namely, the petitioner, were not on good terms from before. From annexure "1" to the revision application, which is a station diary entry No. 285 dated the 14th June 1968, two facts emerge. The owner of the house in which the petitioner was living was a relation of the learned sub divisional officer and he used to tether his cattle on the passage which was meant for going to the road in front of the house of the petitioner, and the allegation was that the place had become dirty and children were afraid to pass through that road because of the cattle tied there. Some protests were made to the owner of the house, but he did not listen to it; rather he insisted that the petitioner should vacate his house. The second point is that the learned Sub-divisional Officer had called this petitioner on the night of the 13th June and asked him to vacate the house. I do not say that these allegations are correct or proved in the case ; but these allegations were made and they are contained in the station diary entry. So there must be some sort of strained feeling between the learned Sub-Divisional officer and this petitioner. It is, perhaps, on that account that even the slightest provocation on the part of the petitioner led the Sub-Divisional Officer to draw up a contempt proceeding against the petitioner. It is also not known from the order whether the petitioner was arguing a case before the Sub-divisional Officer when this occurrence took place, or he was present there for some other work.