Lort-Williams, J - (1.)In this case a rule was issued upon the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta to show cause why the order complained of should not be set aside, the order being-one in which he directed the petition of complaint of the petitioners to be filed and so far as it affected certain of the accused he dismissed the complaint. This case comes before us under Section 435, Criminal P.C. The petition is headed, "Criminal Revisional Jurisdiction. In the matter of an application under Section 439, Criminal P.C.," there were two complainants petitioners Sashadhar Acharjya. and Suhashini Debi. They complained against Sir Charles Tegart, Commissioner of Police and about 20 other police sergeants and other police officers names unknown led by Sir Charles Tegart to French Chandernagore and Nalini Mazumdar, Manmatha Sen, a Mahomedan Sub-Inspector and some other officers of the special branch of the Calcutta police.
(2.)The facts set out in the petition which consists of 16 paragraphs, may be concisely said to be that the petitioners-were British subjects residing in Chandernagore, that in the early morning of 2 September, 1930 at about 2-45 a. m. the accused police party (so it is described in the petition), led by Sir Charles Tegart, Commissioner of Police, went to the premises oil the petitioners and by force entered the house and arrested the petitioners and others, that firearms were used, that one person was killed and that soon afterwards, that is to say about 4 o clock, the French police arrived at the premises and the petitioners were removed to the French police station. Subsequently they were taken to the British Jail at Hooghly about 10-30 a. m. and from there on 3 September to Lall Bazar and to the Presidency Jail. On 6 October and 29 October respectively they were discharged from custody. The petition goes on to say that they complained of these actions of the police party to the Chief Presidency Magistrate and he, after various proceedings, made the order to which I have referred dismissing the complaint as regards Sir Charles Tegart and Nalini Muzumdar and filing it with regard to Manmatha Sen-the difference in the two modes of proceeding being due to the fact that he considered that no complaint could be made or enquired into against the first two of the accused because necessary sanction for their prosecution had not been obtained from the Local Government. With regard to accused 3 the Magistrate seems to have been under the impression that a further petition would be made by the complainants and he acknowledged that he might have been under some mistake with regard to this accused. Evidently ho was under the impression for some time that another petition had been filed. It was for these reasons that the learned Magistrate ordered that part of the petitioners complaint to be filed. The petition of complaint is a somewhat extraordinary document. It consists of a very large number of paragraphs and a great deal of irrelevant matter.
(3.)The learned advocate who has appeared for the petitioners has more than once excused himself on the ground of lack of experience; but it seems to us that what-over his experience may be he has conducted this case with considerable ability and that it is perfectly obvious from the perusal of these voluminous documents, lists of cases, authorities, text-books and so on that he has been at enormous pains to prepare this case properly on behalf of his clients. The only difficulty is that in his enthusiasm he has put so much, both into the petition to the learned Magistrate and into his arguments before this Court that it has some-times been difficult to appreciate or grasp what really are the relevant points upon which he desires to base his case. I am not surprised that the learned Magistrate on reading this petition, experienced considerable difficulty in appreciating what it was that he was expected to deal with. We should have been justified in refusing to interfere or to take any further action simply on the ground that the petition of complaint is not in any kind of order. If the petitioners had put forward a simple and concise petition of complaint it would have been much easier for the learned Magistrate to deal with it. The first and most prominent fault is that it is a joint complaint which so far as we know is not contemplated by the Criminal Procedure Code. The duties of a Magistrate under Section 200, Criminal P.C. make this clear, because in taking cognizance of an offence on complaint he must at once examine the complainant upon oath and it is obvious that if there are two or more complain-ants on the same complaint it is physically impossible to fulfil the provisions of that section.