The court's decision emphasized that the absence of justifiable grounds for transfer, the presiding officer's judicial conduct, and the petitioner's own actions influenced the dismissal of the transfer petition.

JUDGMENT

A.V. Ravindra Babu, J. - This Transfer Criminal Petition is filed by the petitioner, who is the accused in C.C.No.65 of 2017, on the file of III Additional Junior Civil Judge, Visakhapatnam, with a prayer to transfer the same to any other competent Court at Visakhapatnam, to conduct the proceedings under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act.

2. At the outset, this Court would like to make it clear that the narration of facts in the affidavit enclosed to the petition are ill-drafted with all defective sentences, etc. However, this Court made an effort to know the case of the petitioner, as such, the case of the petitioner as understand by the Court by going through the averments of the affidavit which are ill-drafted is as follows:

The petitioner is facing trial in C.C.No.65 of 2017 under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act. At one occasion she could not attend due to ill-health. She instructed her counsel to file the petition under Section 317 of Code of Criminal Procedure ('Cr.P.C.' for short). As her counsel was busy, he entrusted the same to another Advocate. In the meantime, Court issued Non-Bailable Warrant against her. Her Advocate filed a petition to recall the Non-Bailable Warrant. The learned Presiding Officer terrorized the petitioner with unwanted comments and made her to wait without passing proper orders and he did not follow the proper procedure and he used to make comments against the petitioner touching her family affairs and without disposing her application under Section 70(2) of Cr.P.C. promptly, finally passed orders with unnecessary conditions. When she filed CRLP No.5753 of 2022, this Court cancelled the irrelevant conditions. So, the petitioner has apprehension of bias, as such, her case may be transferred to another Court of competent jurisdiction.

3. A counter is filed by the second respondent denying the averments and opposing the prayer.

4. First respondent is State, represented by Public Prosecutor.

5. Now, in deciding the Transfer Criminal Petition, the point that arises for consideration is whether the C.C.No.65 of 2017, pending on the file of III Additional Junior Civil Judge, Visakhapatnam, is liable to be transferred to any other competent Court at Visakhapatnam, as prayed for?

Point:-

6. This Court while ordering notice to the respondents, called for remarks of the concerned Presiding Officer, who submitted his remarks in detail.

7. It is to be noticed that with the self-same averments, the petitioner approached the Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Visakhapatnam, under Section 408 of Cr.P.C. and the learned Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Visakhapatnam, dismissed the said petition. Then, she approached this Court by filing this application.

8. The findings of the learned Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Visakhapatnam, is that the Presiding Officer acted judicially and there are no justifiable grounds to transfer.

9. Now as evident from the remarks of the learned Presiding Officer originally, even when the matter was on the file of IV Additional Junior Civil Judge, Visakhapatnam, the petitioner remained absent for several times and Non-Bailable Warrants were issued in several occasions. There is no dispute that the petitioner was in the habit of remaining absent inviting issuance of Non-Bailable Warrants and after getting cancellation of Non-Bailable Warrants, she used to remain absent. It is quietly evident from the narration of remarks by the Presiding Officer. Even otherwise, when the learned counsel for the accused before the Court below failed to file an application, when the matter was called, the Court below was justified in issuing Non-Bailable Warrant. On that no bad motive can be attributed to the Presiding Officer. Whatever the allegations raised by the petitioner are denied by the learned Presiding Officer in his detailed remarks. It is no doubt true that when the petitioner filed an application to recall warrant, the learned Presiding Officer allowed the said application directing to