LALJI Vs. EMPEROR (GENDAN LAL)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A Magistrate of the First Class in Bareilly ordered three persons to execute a bond for keeping the peace. The persons so bound applied to the Sessions Judge for a revision of this order. The learned Sessions Judge went .into the reasons jet out by the Magistrate for passing his order and came to the conclusion that the applicants should not have been bound over and that the order binding them over should be set aside. He considered that under the ruling Banarsi Das v. Partab Singh 18 Ind. Cas. 351 : 35 A. 103 : 11 A.L.J. 16 : 14 L.J. 63, this could only be done by reference to this Court. He has accordingly sent the case up with a recommendation that the order be set aside. The case before me, however, differs from the case of Banarsi Das v. Partab Singh 18 Ind. Cas. 351 : 35 A. 103 : 11 A.L.J. 16 : 14 L.J. 63. In this last case the District Magistrate had treated it as though it were an appeal and cancelled the order of the lower Court. It was held that the order of the District Magistrate was void as an order passed without jurisdiction. There is no sign, however, that the case before me is a case of an appeal from an order of the Magistrate of the First Clasp. It appears to me that the District Magistrate has power at any time, for sufficient reasons to be recorded in writing, to cancel any bond for keeping the peace, provided that the bond be one given in obedience to an order of a Court in his district not superior to his Court. In the present case the Magistrate who passed the order was a Magistrate subordinate to the District Magistrate, and I agree entirely with what was said in the concluding sentence of this Court s judgment in Banarsi Das v. Partab Singh 18 Ind. Cas. 351 : 35 A. 103 : 11 A.L.J. 16 : 14 L.J. 63 thus far, namely, the matter is one concerning the peace of the district and I think it advisable in the circumstances of the case that the record should be placed before the present District Magistrate so that he may examine it himself and see whether or not it is any longer necessary to keep the opposite party under his bond." I see nothing in the words contained in Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to prevent the District Magistrate from cancelling the bond for reasons other than that the persons bound over can be released without hazard to the community or any other person. Where a Code gives a particular Court jurisdiction to act, it has been held by this Court on several occasions that it is that Court which should be applied to, and not this Court. I decline to interfere but direct that the record be laid before the District Magistrate in order that he may, if he thinks fit, deal with it under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.