MIR GHULAM AHMED Vs. HAJI ABDUL REHMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application alienist an order passed by the First Addl. Munsiff Magistrate. Srinagar, by which he has staved the criminal proceedings before him pending disposal of a civil suit between the same parties. The applicants have come up to this Court direct without moving the Sessions Judge to make a reference to this Court.

(2.) THE case was in the first instance heard by Mufti Bahauddin J. while sitting sanely, and he referred it to a Division Bench in order to consider whether the well-established practice of this Court not to interfere in revision unless the carty has moved the Sessions Judge or the Chief Judicial Magistrate should be discontinued in view of changed circumstances. The case was thereafter heard by a Division Bench consisting: of Mufti Baha-ud-Din J. , and myself and we referred the following question for an authoritative pronouncement to the Full Bench: Whether a party invoking the revisional jurisdiction vested under Section 435 of the Criminal P. C. can straightway move the High Court or that he should first move the Sessions Judge or the Chief Judicial Magistrate and then only the High Court.

(3.) WE have heard counsel for the parties at great length. Counsel for the petitioner has mainly relied on a Full Bench decision of the Kerala High Court wherein the Court has criticized the Practice of insisting on the litigant to move the lower courts first before approaching the High Court in revision. Before, however, answering the question referred to us in all its aspects, it may be necessary to state a few admitted circumstances.