Judgement

CHANDRASEKHARA AIYAR,J.: These appeals come before us on special leave to appeal granted under Art. 136 of the constitution against two orders of the Calcutta High Court dismissing Criminal Revision Petitions Nos. 559/51 and 312/52 preferred by the appellants respectively.

2. In Criminal Revision Petition No. 559/51, the High Court (Harries C. J. and Banarjee J.) confirmed an order made by a Presidency Magistrate discharging the accused on the ground of want of sanction under S. 197, Criminal P. C.

3. In Criminal revision Petition No. 312/52, Lahiri and Guha JJ., set aside an order made by another Presidency magistrate that no sanction was required and they trate that quashed the proceedings against the accused.

4. The incidents which gave rise to the two complaints are closely inter-related and can be set out briefly. In connection with certain Proceedings pending before the Income-tax Investigation commission it was found necessary to search two premises. - 17, Kalakar Street and 36, Armenian Street to inspect, take copies and secure Possession of certain, books, papers and documents believed to be in them. A warrant was issued by the Commission for this purpose in favour of persons, namely, H.C. Bhari, A. d. De, A. K. Bose and P. Mukherjee, to carry out the search.

5. The authorised officials went to the Kalakar street permises, third floor on the morning of December 1950. Matajog Dobey, (Appellant in Criminal Appeal No.67), the darawan of Kashiram Agarwala, says that when he found them forcibly breaking open the entrance door of the flat he challenged them and requested them to desist. They paid no heed to him, broke open the door, went inside and interfered with some boxes and drawers of tables.

They tied him with a rope and assaulted him causing injuries. On these facts he filed a complaint on 27-12-1950 against H. C. Bhari and three others (name unknown) under Ss. 323, 341, and 109, Penal Code.

6. The four officials and some policemen raided the Armenian Street premises on the evening of 26-12-1950. Nandram Agarwala (father of Kashiram Agarawala ) came to the place and found that they had forcibly opened the lock of the door of the room in which there were several books and papers, which they were collecting and packing into bundles for removal. He protested, pointed out that their actions were illegal and oppressive, and he wanted a proper search list to be prepared and proper receipts to be given to him for the book and documents sought to be seized and removed.

Thereupon, two policemen held him down and he was assaulted mercilessly, kicked, 47 dragged downstairs, put in a police van, and taken to the Burra Bazar thana, where he was assaulted again before being sent to the hospital. He was brought back and kept in the lock up till midnight when he was released on bail. Setting out these facts, he lodged a complaint against the four officials, other subordinates and police officers whose names he did not then know but could supply later.

The offences mentioned in the complaint are Ss. 323, 342 and 504, Penal code. Later, the names of two police officers were given --Bibhuti Chakravarti and Nageswar Tiwari.

7. The two complaints were sent over for judicial inquiry to two different Magistrates. On 21-2-1951, the Magistrate held on Agarwala s complaint that a prima facie case had been made out under S. 323 against all the four accused and under S. 342 against the two policemen. On this report, summonses were directed to issue under S. 323 against all the accused.

On 1-5-1951, two prosecution witnesses were examined in chief and the case stood adjourned to 22-5-1951. It was on this latter date that the 1st accused Bhari filed a petition, taking the objection of want of sanction under S. 197, Criminal P. C. The objection was upheld and all the accused discharged on 31-5-1951. Nandram Agarwala went up to the High Court in revision, but the order of the Presidency Magistrate was affirmed.

8. In Matajog Dobey s complaint, afte