Varampeti Venkataswamy Reddy vs The District Collector, The Joint Collector, Mandal Revenue Officer Piler, Station House Officer Piler PS and Koppala Lakshmaiah

Bilal Nazki, J.—Heard learned counsel for the parties. It appears that there is a dispute between the petitioner and 5th respondent with regard to right of way. The matter is pending in a Civil Court. An application was made before the Collector who stated in his order that it could not be possible for him to decide the matter and asked the Mandal Revenue Officer to enquire into the matter and invoke Section 147 of Cr.P.C. Then the Mandal Revenue Officer, on the basis of order of the Collector, passed the impugned order. The impugned order reads as under :

"In the reference cited the pattedar Sri K. Lakshmaiah of Kummarapale h/o Mudupulavemula village owns lands in S. Nos. 477- etc. in Mudupulavemula village and represented that there is plan marked cart track to his patta lands but Sri V. Venkataswamy Reddy and others of Reddiveripalle h/o Vepula by the village are obstructing the plan marked cart track and causing inconvenience to the petitioner.

I request you to provide necessary protection u/s. 147 Cr.P.C. whenever he approaches."

This order is manifestly an illegal order, because the purport of Section 147 of Cr.P.C. is that if an Executive Magistrate is satisfied from the report of a police officer or upon other information, that a dispute likely to cause a breach of the peace exists regarding any alleged right of user of any land or water within his local jurisdiction, he may make an order in writing, stating the grounds of his being so satisfied and requiring the parties concerned in such dispute to attend his Court in person or by pleader on a specified date. Exercise of jurisdiction by the Executive Magistrate u/s 147 of Cr.P.C. depends upon his satisfaction from the police report or any other information that a dispute likely to cause a breach of the peace exists regarding any alleged right of user of any land or water within his jurisdiction. Unless such satisfaction is recorded by the Executive Magistrate, no order can be passed u/s 147 of Cr.P.C. For exercise of jurisdiction u/s 147 of Cr.P.C. the sine qua non is recording of satisfaction with regard to a dispute likely to cause breach of the peace regarding any alleged right of user of any land or water. After the order is passed u/s 147(1) of Cr.P.C., the Executive Magistrate is bound to call the parties concerned in dispute and ask them to put in their written statements with regard to their claim. So in the first stage, the Executive Magistrate is supposed to record his satisfaction after giving the reasons. The second stage is to call the parties concerned in dispute to put in their written statements with respect to their respective claims and it is only after consideration of those statements and after conducting an enquiry as is provided u/s 145 of Cr.P.C., he may pass the prohibitory orders under sub-section (3) of Section 147 of Cr.P.C. Unless the first two steps are taken, the third step cannot be taken.

For the reasons given hereinabove, the impugned order is manifestly without jurisdiction and illegal which is hereby quashed. The writ petition is accordingly allowed. No costs.

Rule nisi issued has been made absolute as above.

Witness the Hon''ble the Chief Justice Sri Devinder Gupta, on this the Thursday, the Twelfth day of August, 2004.