Nand Kishore Missir vs Kalika Missir and others

Bucknill, J.—This is an application made in criminal revisional jurisdiction on behalf of one Nand Kishore Missir. The circumstances under which this application is made appear to me to be somewhat peculiar. On the 30th January last the Sub-Ddivisional Officer of Buxar dismissed the complaint of the applicant that he had been assaulted. The applicant applied to the Sessions Judge asking for further enquiry; but his motion was rejected on the 7th February last. It is these orders which the applicant now asks should be set aside.

Now, there is no doubt that there was a somewhat serious affray and there is also no doubt that the complainant was somewhat severely injured. It is said that he received no less than 7 injuries including two punctured wounds on the arm and on the chest. He made a complaint to the police and the police submitted a lengthy report. It would seem that although the police fully thought that there had been an attack made on the applicant, yet they considered that some part of the story which he put forward and in particular with regard to the locality at which the affair occurred was not true; and so far as I can see, on this ground, the Police Officer writes at the close of his report. "The Sub-Inspector supervised the enquiry on 3-1-1923 and ordered me to submit final report false and hence I am submitting the final report false." Now when the complainant became aware of the attitude which the police had taken up, he wrote a long petition to the Magistrate which was in effect an indictment of what the police had done. He asked that this petition should be treated as a definite complaint, that he should be examined on oath and that proper enquiry should be made into the matter as required by law. But the Magistrate did not take any such steps. All that he seems to have done was to have visited the locality where the affair is said to have taken place and to have come to the conclusion that, for some reason or other which he does not give "there could not possibly have been any marpit on the disputed field." It is very difficult to say how it was possible definitely to arrive at such a conclusion; but I gather from the Police report that there must have been no signs of disturbance on the land where the complainant said he had been injured. That matter, however, appears to me to have been somewhat prematurely decided. The Magistrate then dismissed this petition. In the case of Jogendra Nath Mookerjee Vs. Emperor, it is clearly laid down that where a person having made a charge against another finds that the police report designates his charge as false, he is entitled to file a petition before the Sub-divisional Officer impugning the correctness of the police report. The Magistrate must regard this petition as a complaint and the complainant is entitled to have the persons complained against tried on the charge, or else his statement (that is to say the complainant''s statement) must be recorded on oath and his complaint dismissed.

I think therefore that the order in this case made by the Magistrate is probably in law bad; but, even if it was not so, I should still be strongly inclined under the circumstances of this case to interfere and to direct that further enquiry should take place. I think the circumstances are such that it certainly is desirable that this case should be further enquired into; and therefore I direct that the order of the Sub-Divisional Officer of Buxar, of the 30th January, 1923, and that of the Sessions Judge of Shahabad of the 7th February last, be set aside. I further direct that the petition of the 29th January last, of the complainant be treated as a formal complaint and that the enquiry shall proceed upon that complaint in accordance with law.