Jagdish Sahai, J. - (1.) The petitioner R.S. Sharma has been convicted under Section 80 of the Factories Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and Rule 110 of the rules framed thereunder (hereinafter referred to as the rules) and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 100. He filed a revision application before the learned Sessions Judge who refused to make a reference to this Court and rejected the application. Thereafter the petitioner filed a revision application in this Court under Section 439, Criminal Procedure Code, which came up for hearing before a learned single Judge. On a reference being made by him to a larger Bench, the matter has come before us. The only submission that has been made on behalf of the petitioner before us is that the complaint on the basis of which he has been convicted was barred by limitation.
(2.) The accident giving rise to this reference and in which one Zile Singh was the victim occurred on 19 September 1957. The matter was reported to the Inspector of Factories (hereinafter referred to as the inspector) by means of an application, dated 4 November 1957 made by Zile Singh. The inspector received this application on 12 February 1958 and the complaint giving rise to this case was filed by the inspector on 7 July 1958.
(3.) Section 106 of the Act requires that a complaint should be made within three months of the date on which the alleged commission of the offence came to the knowledge of the inspector. The question for consideration is whether on the basis of the information with regard to the offence which the inspector received on 12 February 1958 by means of the application of Zile Singh, knowledge can be imputed to him so as to attract the provisions of Section 106 of the Act. The said section reads as follows:-106. No Court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act unless complaint thereof is made within three months of the date on which the alleged commission of the offence came to the knowledge of an inspector. provided that where the offence consists of disobeying a written order made by an inspector, complaint thereof may be made within six months of the date on which the offence is alleged to have been committed. It is common ground that the proviso is not applicable to the facts of the present case and we are concerned only with the main clause of Section 106 of the Act. Section 106 of the Act lays down a rule which affects the jurisdiction of the Court. If the complaint is not filed within the period prescribed, the Court shall not have jurisdiction to try the same. The key word in the section is "knowledge." It has been contended on behalf of the State that there is a difference between "knowledge" and "information" and knowledge can be imputed to a person only at the stage when he believes the information to be true and that stage can only be reached after an enquiry has been made and satisfaction reached by the inspector that the information is correct. It has been submitted that whether or not an inspector had knowledge can be proved by him alone. In Shorter Oxford English Dictionary among others the following meanings hive been given to the word knowledge": Acquaintance with a fact; state of being aware or informed; consciousness (of anything). Acquaintance with facts, range of information. Intellectual acquaintance, with, or perception, of, fact or truth; the fact, state or condition of undemanding. Formerly, also, intelligence, intellect. A mental apprehension; a cognition. Theoretical or practical understanding, of an art, science, language, etc. The fact or condition of being instructed; information acquired by study; learning. Information, intelligence; intimation. It would be seen from the above that the word "knowledge" is sometimes used also in the sense of information. When a person says that he has knowledge, he is describing a state of his mind. That state may be reached either by what one sees or by what he hears and what he believes to be true. If an information is received which the inspector does not believe to be false or has no reason to believe it to be false, he would be attributed a state of mind which may amount to his having knowledge of that matter. It may be noticed that the words used in Section 106 of the , Act are "came to the knowledge of an-Inspector" and not " when the inspector was satisfied about the correctness of the information." If the legislature intended that an enquiry should be made by an inspector and . only if he is satisfied about the correctness of the information he should make a complaint, the words used by the legislature would have been "within three months of the date on which the inspector is satisfied about the commission of the offence." Both satisfaction and knowledge denote a state of mind. In order to be satisfied or in order to have knowledge there must be some basis. The basis may be, as we have said above, either what is seen or what Is heard or the Information received. Knowledge is that state of mind when the person believes a thing to be true or has no reason to believe that it Is not true. The state of satisfaction is reached only when the man is certain after deliberate consideration over the matter that that thing exists beyond all doubt. When a person gets fully determined either by the subjective process of deliberating over the matter or by the objective process of making an enquiry or by seeing the thing himself, the stage of knowledge ceases and the stage of satisfaction sets in. In our judgment, the word "satisfaction" has not been purposely used in Section 106 of the Act. Inasmuch as the inspector has only to make allegations by lodging a complaint, the satisfaction about the correctness or otherwise of the allegations has got to be that of the Court. In our opinion, the word "knowledge" has been used in the sense that if the inspector himself sees an offence being committed or if he receives Information which he has no reason to disbelieve, it would amount to his having knowledge of the offence. It is true that the legislature did not use the word "Information" but for that there are two obvious reasons. The first one being that if the word "Information" was used, that would not have included a complaint being made on the basis of what the inspector saw for himself as the word "information" would not have comprehended oases where the inspector saw an offence being committed with his own eyes and in respect of which he did not receive any Information and secondly because it was not expected that he would act on every information including the one which he knows to be untrue. It has been contended by the learned Government advocate that an inspector alone can depose on what date he had knowledge of the offence and his statement on that point should therefore be final. We are not prepared to accept. this argument. We have already pointed out that Section 106 of the Act is a provision by means of which the jurisdiction of a Court is barred under certain circumstances. In other words, it confers an immunity to an offender in oases where a complaint is not made within the period of limitation provided. Consequently it is a matter which goes to the root of the jurisdiction of the Court and in every case in which the jurisdiction is challenged by an accused person, it is the duty of the Court first to determine whether or not the complaint was filed within three months from the date of knowledge to the inspector. It is obvious that such a question has got to be determined in an objective manner and on the basis of the evidence produced by the parties and cannot be left to be concluded by the statement of the inspector. It is open to the Court not to believe the statement of the inspector that he had received knowledge on a particular date. The statement of the inspector is only a piece of evidence which may or may not be believed. The inspector cannot usurp the functions which the legislature has vested in Courts, It is not difficult to visualize as to what would be the consequences if the question as to whether or not the inspector had knowledge of the commission of the offence on a particular date were to be concluded by the statement of the inspector. In the first place, he would become a judge of his own cause and from a witness or a complainant, would ascend to the position of a judge. Besides even in oases in which he has been inactive or lethargic and has filed a complaint beyond the period prescribed, he would be able to confer the jurisdiction on the Court to try the case by falsely stating that his enquiries concluded and he acquired knowledge of the offences on some date within three months of the filing of the complaint. In other words, the jurisdiction of the Court to try or not to try a case would not depend upon the factual position in the case but upon the sweat will of the inspector. We have no doubt in our mind that that is not what the legislature intended by enacting Section 106 of the Act and it is not possible to stretch the meaning of the word " knowledge " so as to include an earlier enquiry and satisfaction of the inspector that the offence was actually committed. It is true that an inspector like any other complainant should not file a complaint merely on suspicion or hearsay or one which is false or vexatious to his knowledge but neither Section 106 of the Act requires nor is it the import of the word "knowledge" that the filing of a complaint should be preceded by an enquiry and only after the inspector is satisfied that the offence has been actually committed he should file a complaint. In fact a complainant is not expected to do so under the general law and nothing has been pointed out to us in the Act to show that the same differs from the general law in this matter. To Investigate and enquire into the truth of an allegation is not the function of a complainant but that of the Court though a complainant is not expected to rush to a Court unless he believes that the allegations he is making in Court are not false. There is a difference of degree between "believe" and "satisfy." For belief there need not be a certainty which is required in the case of satisfaction. The inspector need not have full satisfaction that the offence has really been committed in order to file a complaint. If he believes an information and thus understands that an offence has been committed or has no reason to disbelieve the Information, he should file a complaint and leave it to the Court to decide whether or not the information received by him is true and whether or not in fact the offence has been committed. Can it be said that in a case where there is good evidence to show that an offence has been committed but the inspector does not personally believe that evidence or does not feel satisfied about its correctness, he can refuse to file a complaint and thus deprive the Court of adjudicating upon that matter ? It will be his duty to put before the Court the evidence that is in his possession and leave it to the Court to decide whether that evidence should be believed or not. He cannot himself assume the role of the Court and decide for himself whether or not that evidence is correct and in cases where he comes to the conclusion that it is not correct, not to file a complaint. Such a course would be much in excess of his functions and if he does not file a complaint only on the ground that he does not personally believe that evidence, he would be committing a serious dereliction of duty. All that is required on his part is that he should not rush to Court with frivolous and vexatious cases. The law only requires that he must act bona fide and put in Court cases in which there is some evidence to support the charge. For exercising such functions It appears to us that it Is not necessary for him to hold an enquiry and we have already said above that Section 106 of the Act or any other section in the Act does not require him to do so. This does not mean that he cannot hold an enquiry at all in order to find out what evidence he will produce in Court or whether the case is not a frivolous or vexatious one. All that we intended to say is that the holding of an enquiry is not a condition precedent to his acquiring knowledge of the commission of the offence.;