EMPEROR Vs. BHIMAJI VENKAJI NADGIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We understand that the accused person in this case who is charged with harbouring an offender and receiving a bribe from him and who has been committed to the Court of Session at Dharwar, is a Vatandar Patil and consequently that he could not be prosecuted except with the sanction provided by Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code. It is on this understanding that the judgment of this Court is based.

(2.) We start, therefore, with this, that a previous sanction was under Section 197 essential to confor jurisdiction on the Magistrate to take cognizance of the offence. Now as a matter of fact he took cognizance of this offence and proceeded some way with his enquiry before any sanction was signed by the sanctioning officer. For he began to take evidence in the case on the 5th of April and the sanction was not signed until the 12th. So obviously there was no previous sanction. The defect becomes still more glaring when we learn, as happens to be true in this case, that the sanction itself was not placed on the record of the case until the 2nd of May, which was the very day on which the order of commitment to the Court of Session was made. Nor do the papers in the case give any justification for supposing that the sanction actually came into the hands of the Magistrate before the 2nd of May. So that although the law requires a previous sanction, the Magistrate had taken cognizance of the case and proceeded with it without that sanction and he had, so far as we can gather, proceeded to record the whole of the evidence without being aware that any such sanction existed. It is unfortunate but it seems to us that this being so, the whole of these proceedings are without jurisdiction and must be regarded as totally invalid.

(3.) It follows that the commitment to the Court of Session is invalid and that it must be, quashed, and we make that order making it clear that the whole of the proceedings must start again from the very beginning if further proceedings are to be taken against this present accused.