G RANGANAYAKULU Vs. REGISTRAR HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH HYDERABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are the members of Machilipatnam Bar where for about seventy-years a Court of Session for the Krishna Division comprising of the territories of the Krishna Revenue District, has been functioning. They now filed this Writ Petition challenging the validity of a Notification issued by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh dated 23-1-1980 directing an Additional Sessions judge Krishna, to sit at Vijayawada and dispose of such of those Sessions Cases and other Criminal matters as are made over to him by the District Judge, Krishna at Machilipatnam. The petitioners raised two main contentions. The first contention of the petitioners is that the aforesaid Notification of the High Court dated 23-1-1980 is illegal and ultra vires of the powers of the High Court under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code as it amounts to creating a Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Vijayawada within the Sessions Division of Krishna contrary to Section 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The second contention of the petitioners is that the Notification has been vitiated by arbitrariness and unreasonableness and is the result of the pressure exerted by the powerful Vijayawada Bar and not the result of the careful application of mind to the need for disposal of the criminal cases. As much of the argument turns upon the aforesaid Notification of the High Court, it is useful to reproduce the said Notification in its entirety. "Under sub-section (6) of Section 9 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Act 2 of 1974), the High Court of Andhra Pradesh specifies that with effect on and from the date of the Officer posted assuming charge, the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna, as sanctioned in G.O. Ms. No. 31 Home (Courts A) Department, dated 11/01/1980 shall sit at Vijayawada and dispose of the Sessions Cases and other Criminal matters as are made over to him by the District and Sessions Judge, Krishna at Machilipatnam.

(2.) A perusal of the aforesaid Notification show that it has been issued under sub-section (6) of Section 9 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and in substance directs that the Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna, shall sit at Vijayawada and dispose of such of those sessions cases and other criminal matters as are made over to him by the District and Sessions Judge, Krishna at Machilipatnam. It is clear beyond a shadow of doubt that the Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna, who shall sit at Vijaywada dispose of the criminal matters made over to him under the impugned Notification cannot receive any Criminal Appeals or Criminal Revisions. In other words, notwithstanding the fact that the aforesaid Notification uses the word "Court" what is provided for by the aforesaid Notification of the High Court is not the "establishment" of a Court of an Additional Sessions Judge but only posting of an Additional Sessions Judge at Vijayawada with directions to dispose of such of those criminal cases instituted before the Sessions Court, Krishna at Machilipatnam but which have been made over to him by the District and Sessions Judge Krishna at Machilipatnam. The sine qua non of a Sessions Court under the Code is the legal capacity to receive criminal appeals and Original Criminal Applications and exercise all the powers and perform all the functions of a Sessions Court, as enumerated in the Criminal Procedure Code. The Notification has scrupulously avoided the investiture of any such powers on the Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna. The Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna, under the notification, as we have already noted, can neither receive Criminal Appeals, nor the Original Criminal Applications. In the absence of conferment of those powers and functions the Notification merely calling the Additional Sessions Judge at Vijayawada as a Court would not make it legally into a Court. Mr. Babul Reddy, in support of his contention, stressed upon the fact that the Notification uses the language of an officer being posted as an Additional Sessions Judge. Above all, he argued that if the intention of the Notification is not to establish a Court of Session at Vijayawada but only to specify a place where the Sessions Judge should sit, the Notification should have left the choice of the officer to sit at Vijayawada to the District and Sessions Judge, Krishna at Machilipatnam. I cannot agree. The fact that the Notification clearly uses the language Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna, shows that the Officer to be posted at Vijayawada is an Additional Sessions Judge of the Sessions Court, Krishna at Machilipatnam and not an Additional Sessions Judge of Vijayawada Court. No doubt the Notification uses the word "court", but for the reasons which I have already mentioned above, I consider this use of the language is inadvertent and of no legal significance. There cannot be a Sessions Court without a power to receive Original Applications and appeals.

(3.) I am therefore unable to agree with the contention of the petitioners that the effect of the aforesaid Notification is to constitute a Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna at Vijayawada. On the other hand, in my opinion the Notification is directly traceable to the powers of the High Court under section 9(6) of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 194 of the same Code. Under Section 9(6) of the Code, the High Court is competent to specify a place or places where a Court of Session shall hold its sittings. Under Section 194 of the Code, the High Court is competent to direct an Additional Sessions Judge to try such cases as a Sessions Judge of the Division may make over to him for trial. In view of the above, I am wholly unable to agree with the contention of Mr. Babul Reddy, the learned counsel for the petitioners that the aforesaid Notification amounts to constituting a Sessions Court at Vijayawada.