MOHAMMAD HUSAIN Vs. MTNANHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision from an order in revision of the District Magistrate of Bijnor. A complainant brought a charge under Section 406, I.P.C., against the applicant. The matter came before a Special Magistrate and he discharged the applicant. The complainant went in revision to the District Magistrate who purporting to act under Section 436, Criminal P.C., ordered a retrial. The applicant comes in revision to the High Court against the order of the District Magistrate.

(2.) Mr. Khawja, on behalf of the complainant, raises a preliminary objection to the case being entertained by the High Court. He contends that the applicant should not be heard by the High Court, until he has first made an application in revision to the Sessions Judge, and he prays in aid the authority of Sharif Ahmad V/s. Qabul Singh A.I.R. 1921 All. 30. In that case a Bench of this Court decided that: as far as the practice of this Court is concerned, an application to the lower Court should be considered an essential step in the procedure, and that should be so whether the District Magistrate or Sessions Judge has power to grant the relief or not. In future, therefore, failure on the part of the applicant to submit his application to the lower Court will operate as a bar to the application being entertained by this Court.

(3.) It is contended that the applicant in this case should have first of all filed an application in revision in the Court of the Sessions Judge as a preliminary step to an application to the High Court in accordance with the ruling quoted above. It is contended that the District Magistrate's Court is an inferior Court to the sessions Court within the meaning of this ruling, and it is contended that this is made clear specially in matters of revision by the explanation following Section 435(1), Criminal P.C., which enacts that: all Magistrates, whether exercising original or appellate jurisdiction, shall be deemed to be inferior to the Sessions Judge for the purposes of this sub-section and of Section 437.