M SUBBIAH Vs. TRAMACHARLU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a simple case in which the President of a Panchayat Court was complained against in respect of certain acts committed by him while he was in his own Court dealing with a case in which the complainant in the case was a party.

(2.) The complaint petition itself says that when the President, that is, the petitioner in the present case, was about to write the Court's order dismissing the complainant's petition, the complainant objected to the dictation by the clerk of the President of the order to be pronounced in the matter and asked the President not to allow the clerk to dictate the judgment as the Court was bound in law to write its own judgment and that it was on account of this objection taken by the complainant that the President of the Court is said to have got up from his seat abusing the complainant and slapped him on the cheek twice. It is also alleged that when the complainant warned the President that he had no business to assault him in open Court, the President unlaced his shoe, took it up in his hand, and raised it saying, "I will beat you with my shoe". No actual beating with the shoe followed because, some persons are said to have intervened.

(3.) The question is whether in respect of these acts, sanction is required under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code which says that when any person who is a Judge within the meaning of Section 19 of the Indian Penal Code is accused of any offence alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty, no Court shall take cognizance of such offence except with the previous sanction of the Local Government. In this case no such sanction has been obtained. The Joint Magistrate has nevertheless taken cognizance of the case on the ground that as the objection was raised by the complainant in the case to the procedure adopted by the Court in a perfectly orderly and lawful manner, it was the duty of the Court to answer that objection in an equally orderly and lawful manner and that the alleged use of abusive language and beating and the attempt to beat with a shoe cannot be said to come within the scope of the President's official duties.