LORI CHAND SAHA Vs. NIRODA SUNDARI SAHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the petitioner was accused of an offence against a woman under Section 354 P.C. After certain negotiations to which I shall refer in a moment the case was withdrawn with the leave of the Court. The letter purporting to compromise the case runs thus: I have the honor to withdraw from prosecution the marginally noted case with the permission of the Superintendent of Police and pray that the case may accordingly be withdrawn.

(2.) Thereupon an order was passed by the Sub-divisional Officer of Brahmanbaria under Section 494, Criminal P.C. Then the accused man the present petitioner came before the Sub- Divisional Officer again as prosecutor in a case upon the narrative that he had paid Rs. 1000/- to a relative of the person who had been the prosecutor in the previous case, that he had paid this sum to that relative in order that it might be given to the District Superintendent of Police so that the District Superintendent of Police might give this sum to some charity, that the relative after he had taken the money from the present petitioner did not give it to the District Superintendent of Police and the petitioner was able to get only half of the money back out of the hands of this relative of the man who had prosecuted him on the previous occasion. That being his own story the Sub-Divisional Officer began to think that the order under Section 494 was an attempt to compound an offence which was not really compoundable and so he acted upon this information and therefore set aside the order of discharge. So far as the merits of the proceedings go I think it is a reasonable thing to do if done in a proper way.

(3.) Then the matter was taken by the applicant to the Sessions Judge who was very much worried as to the proper way to go about the matter and finally he thought that the best thing to do was to set aside the order of discharge, because the Sub-Divisional Officer had not as much power to do that as the Judge had. He says that the best course for he Sub-Divivison all Officer was to get a comlpaint direct from the woman concerned in the previous charge and to proceed to try that case out upon a fresh complaint. This the Sub-divisional Officer has done and the complaint of the woman against the present applicant is now in the course of trial.