Sessions Judge has jurisdiction to quash proceeding in order to prevent further harassment of accused when it appears that First Information Report and other documents on which prosecution seeks to rely do not disclose an offence at all.

JUDGMENT - Jamdar M.S., J.-This petition, which was originally filed under Arti- cles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, was ordered by the Division Bench of this Court to be treated as a petition under Article 227 of the Con- stitution and was subsequently amended to make it one under Article 227 of the Constitution read with section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In view of this, the prayer of the petitioner that the provisions of section 3 of the Police (Incitement to Disaffection) Act, 1922, should be declared as ultra vires of the Constitution, does not survive for consideration, and as directed by the Division Bench of this Court by the order dated 25th November 1980, the only question that survives for consideration is about the correctness of the approach adopted by the learned Additional Sessions Judge and of the view taken by him on the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

2. The petitioner is the Editor of Marathi daily newspaper “Tarun Bharat”, which is printed and published at Nagpur. A news item appeared in the issue of the said daily dated 6–9-1973 about the alleged disrespect amongst policemen for their superior officers. The police inspector, Sitabuldi police station felt that the criticism made in the publication wasnot honest and tended to create feeling of disaffection in the Police Force in general and the Police Force of Nagpur City in particular, which amounted to an offence under section 3 of the Police (Incitement of Disaffection) Act, 1922. As the said offence is non-cognizable, he applied to the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Court II, Nagpur, for permission under section 155 (2) of the Code of Criminal, Procedure, 1898, to investigate the offence. The Magistrate granted permission by his order dated 2–10–1973. This was followed by sanction granted by the Commissioner of police in exercise of the powers under section 5 of the Police (Incitement to Disaffection) Act, 1922. There- after a charge-sheet came to be filed against the petitioner on 27–1-1974 for the aforesaid offence. ,

2A. Process was directed to be issued against the petitioner and accordingly a summons was issued to him. The petitioner duly appeared in the Court of the Judicial Magistrate and on 23–7-1974 he filed an application under section 253 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, for discharg-ing him, as according to him, from the statement recorded by the police during invesgation, no offence was disclosed. The Judicial Magistrate rejected the application on the ground that as the case was a summons case section 253 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, had no application and that section 249 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, cannot be invoked at the stage before explaining the particulars of the offence to the petitioner. Being aggrieved by this order, the petitioner filed revision appli-cation under sections 397/399 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, to the Sessions Judge, Nagpur. The learned Additional Sessions Judge, Nagpur, who heard the matter, held that there was no order which could be revised and that fee had no jurisdiction to quash the proceeding, which jurisdiction, according to him, vested in the High Court under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Consequently, he rejected the revision appli-cation for want of jurisdiction. It is this order, which is sought to be quashed in this petition.

3. At the outset, it must be observed that the presumption of the learned Additional Sessions Judge that there was no order which could be revised is clearly wrong. In fact the Magistrate passed three orders in the proceedings. The first order was under section 155 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, granting permission to investigate into the offence. The second order was under section 204 (1) of the Code of Criminal Proce-dure, 1898, about issuing process against the petitioner, and the third order was rejecting the alternative prayer made by the petitione

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