BEYAS NARAIN SINGH Vs. DASRATH SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for revision of the order of the Additional District Judge of Muzaffarpur allowing an appeal under Section 476-B, Criminal P.C. The petitioner now before the Court was the plaintiff in a suit which was instituted in the Court of the Munsif of Hajipur. The claim was for arrears of hakazri due on a zerpeshgi bond; but the defendants produced the bond with certain endorsements purporting to be acknowledgments of payments received by the plaintiff Bey as Narain Singh. These endorsements were examined by a so-called handwriting expert who, after comparing them with admitted writing of Beyas Narain, expressed the view that they were forged. The Munsif found that these endorsements wore forgeries, and his decision was affirmed on appeal by the District Judge who regarded the evidence of the handwriting expert as discredited, but acted on comparison which he himself made of the admitted writing and the questioned signatures. A little more than three months after the decision of the appeal the plaintiff applied to the Munsif of Hajipur, requesting that he would take steps for the prosecution of the defendants for using a forged document in evidence, under Section 476, Criminal P.C. The Munsif made his order directing that a complaint should be made, on 8 July 1935; but it may be noted that on 4 June, while those proceedings were pending, the document with the questioned endorsements upon it had been returned to the defendants. The defendants appealed under Section 476-B to the District Judge, who transferred the appeal for hearing to the Additional District Judge. The Additional District Judge allowed the appeal and directed that the complaint should be withdrawn. The plaintiff prays for revision of that order.

(2.) Mr. N.K. Prasad, on behalf of the petitioners, suggests that the learned District Judge has not properly applied his mind to the facts of the case; and he suggests that the learned Judge, in finding that there is no probability of a conviction in this case, has set too high a standard as a necessary condition precedent to the preferring of a complaint under Section 476. The prosecution would have to depend on the oral evidence of Beyas Narain, together with the comparison by the Court of the questioned document, with writing made by Beyas Narain for the purpose of comparison with it; and if the learned Additional District Judge thought that this evidence could not be sufficiently relied upon as the basis of a conviction, he acted rightly in directing withdrawal of the complaint. Indeed it appears that the learned Munsif, while he was conducting this enquiry, practically put it out of the power of the party desiring to prosecute to secure a conviction, by returning the questioned document to the party who was about to be prosecuted for using it; and certainly without the questioned document it would be extremely difficult to obtain a conviction under Section 193 or Section 196, I.P.C. In any view of the matter, the learned Additional District Judge had jurisdiction to direct withdrawal of the complaint if he was not satisfied with the case for the prosecution; and it would not be proper to interfere with this order under Section 115, Civil P.C.

(3.) Mr. N.K. Prasad suggests that the Additional District Judge had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal, since he is not the Court in which appeals ordinarily lie within the meaning of Secs.476 and 195, Criminal P.C. Mr. N.K. Prasad cites decisions in which it has been held that appeals from Munsifs under Section 476-B, Criminal P.C. cannot be transferred to Subordinate Judges for hearing, except in those cases where a direction has been made that appeals from Munsifs are ordinarily to be filed in Subordinate Judges Courts. In the present instance the appeal was preferred in the Court of the District Judge; but an Additional District Judge had been appointed under Section 8, Civil Courts Act, who had power under the Act to discharge any functions of a District Judge which the District Judge might assign to him, and in the discharge of those functions to exercise the same powers as a District Judge. There is nothing in the Criminal P. C. or in the Civil Courts Act which suggests that the hearing of an appeal under Section 476-B is not one of the functions which the District Judge may assign to the Additional Judge by general or special order in his distribution of business; and when the appeal has in that way been assigned to the Additional Judge, the Additional Judge exercises the same powers as the District Judge. He should be regarded as another officer exercising the functions of the Court of the District Judge in the same manner as an Additional Judge of the High Court exercises the functions of a High Court Judge. I cannot interfere in this case. The application is dismissed with costs. Hearing fee one gold mohur.