SHARIF AHMAD Vs. QABUL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision to set aside a conviction for criminal defamation. A preliminary point has been taken by the opposite party, which is that the matter ought not to have been brought direct to the High Court from the court of the convicting Magistrate, but should first have been submitted to the intermediate court of the Sessions Judge.

(2.) Mr. Ross Alston for the applicant has argued that in cases where the lower court has no power to grant the relief claimed the party aggrieved may proceed straight to the High Court without referring the matter to the consideration of the lower court which, as the case may be, will be either that of the District Magistrate or the Sessions Judge. In support of this contention he has cited many authorities, none of which however decides in terms the proposition that he has put forward.

(3.) We are of opinion that the correct rule of procedure is that set out in the judgment of Mr. Justice Piggott in Emperor V/s. Mansur Husain (1919) I.L.R. 41 All. 587. He says: "It is obviously advisable that this Court should make it a rule of practice that a person dissatisfied with any order or proceeding in a court of inferior jurisdiction to that of the Sessions Judge or of the District Magistrate should, in the first instance, obtain the opinion of the Sessions Judge or of the District Magistrate, on the matter in question, before invoking the jurisdiction of this Court. Such a procedure tends to prevent the time of this Court from being wasted over frivolous or unsustainable applications; it also ensures the further advantage that, if the matter eventually comes before this Court, it comes upon a record containing an expression of opinion by a court of superior jurisdiction, such as that of the Sessions Judge or of the District Magistrate. I am further opinion that, if such a rule of practice is once laid down, it ought to be enforced evenly and without making capricious exceptions in favour of particular applicants."