GULABRAO LAXMANRAO CHANDGUDE Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a revision application asking us to review an order made against the applicant under Section 118, Criminal Procedure Code, directing him to execute a bond in the sum of Rs. 2,000 with one surety for the like amount to be of good behaviour for one year.

(2.) The only point of law which arises in revision is as to the jurisdiction of the Magistrate who dealt with the matter. The case was originally on the Tile of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, First Class, Eastern Division, Poona, and it was transferred from his file by the Additional District Magistrate, Poona, to the file of the Special Magistrate, First Class, Poona Cantonment. Now having regard to the provisions of Secs.107 and 110, Criminal Procedure Code, in order to establish jurisdiction in the Magistrate to make an order, it must be shown that the village where the accused lives and where the act complained of has been committed (i.e., the village of Supe), is within the local jurisdiction of the Special Magistrate, First Class, Poona Cantonment. The village of Supe is admittedly not within the limits of the Poona Cantonment, but it is within the limits of the Poona District. The question whether the Magistrate of Poona Cantonment has jurisdiction or not in the whole of the Poona District depends on the construction of Section 12, Criminal Procedure Code. Sub-section (1) of that section provides that the Local Government may appoint as many persons as it thinks fit, besides the District Magistrate, to be Magistrates of the first, second or third class in any district outside the Presidency towns. And then it goes on: The Local Government or the District Magistrate subject to the control of the Local Government may, from time to time, define local areas within which such persons may exercise all or any of the powers with which they may respectively be invested under this Code.

(3.) So that under that section the Local Government can appoint a Magistrate in a particular district, and then the Local Government or the District Magistrate may carve up the district and. define particular areas within which particular Magistrates are to exercise their functions. If the matter stood there, it might be suggested that where the District Magistrate has made an order directing that a particular Magistrate is to exercise jurisdiction within a particular area, the jurisdiction of that Magistrate is confined to that area and does not in future extend to the rest of the district. But then comes Sub-section (2) which says: Except as otherwise provided by such definitions the jurisdiction and powers of such persons shall extend throughout such district.