RAM DEO SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision against an order binding over the applicants to keep the peace under Section 107, Criminal P.C. The order is assailed on two grounds: (1) That it was passed by a Magistrate who had no jurisdiction; (2) that no proper order under Section 112 was prepared. Nor was a copy of such order sent with the summons.

(2.) Section 107 requires that, unless the proceedings are started by the District Magistrate, both the person informed against and the place where the breach of the peace is apprehended, shall be within the Magistrate's local jurisdiction. The place where the breach of the peace was apprehended was within the Magistrate's jurisdiction, but the applicant resided outside it. No question of jurisdiction was raised in the trial Court. It was raised before the Sessions Judge who held that as the applicants had a chhaoni in the village, to which the dispute relates, and sometimes resided there, this temporary residence was sufficient to give the Magistrate jurisdiction. The question is whether the applicants were within the jurisdiction at the time when the proceedings were started. As to this there is no sufficient information on the record, but I do not propose to pursue the question further, as the irregularity, if there was one, is cured by Section 531, Criminal P.C.,

(3.) As to the second objection, the Magistrate certainly failed to comply with the provisions of Section 112. He ought to have embodied the substance of the information in the order which he passed. Instead of that he wrote the order on the back of a police report which gave the full details of the information, and apparently considered this sufficient. Instead of sending a copy of his order with the summons, he gave the substance of the information in the summons itself. The applicants were, therefore, informed what they had to meet. A similar irregularity has been held by the Bombay High Court in Suleman Adam V/s. Emperor (1909) 11 Bom LR 740 to be covered by the provisions of Section 537, Criminal P.C.