SAIDU KHAN Vs. GAYA PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision against an order of the Sessions Judge of Patna directing a further enquiry under Section 436, Criminal P.C. It appears that on the evening of 31 March 1940, the opposite party lodged an information with the police about offences under Secs.147, 379 and 436, Indian Penal Code, against the first seven petitioners before me. The police investigation took a long time, and on 10 May 1940 the opposite party put in a petition to the Sub-divisional Magistrate praying that a charge sheet may be called for from the police, and the accused persons, namely the first seven petitioners who were accused in the first information, as well as the six other persons who are among the petitioners before me, be placed on their trial. Three days afterwards the Magistrate disposed of the police report which was what they called a final report as distinguished from a charge sheet, and ordered that the case be entered as true under Secs.147 and 379, Indian Penal Code, but as a case of insufficient evidence. On the application made by the opposite party on 10 May, the Magistrate on this date merely passed the order "file." The learned Sessions Judge was moved in revision and treated this order "file" passed on the opposite party's application of 10 May as an order summarily dismissing a complaint.

(2.) Mr. Jafar Imam who appears for the petitioners suggested that though similar applications filed by parties who were dissatisfied with a police report have been treated in many reported decisions as petitions of complaint on which the petitioners must be examined, there is a distinction attaching to anticipatory protest petitions, that is to say, petitions made to the Magistrate before the receipt of the police report. The only distinction that I can see seems to be that an anticipatory protest petition may possibly call for no action at all if the police report that is received afterwards actually places the accused persons on their trial. This position can of course never arise in connexion with petitions of protest filed after the receipt of the police report.

(3.) But apart from this, it seems to me that the two stand on much the same footing. It is also common ground before me that it has actually been held on more than one occasion in this Court that such petitions amount to petitions of complaint on which the petitioners must be examined under Section 200.