A person on whose information a prosecution is started is a 'party interested' within the meaning of Section 526(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and can make an application for transfer of the case.

( 1 ) ON some first information report lodged by the petitioner, the police made an investigation and thereafter submitted a charge-sheet against the opposite parties Nos. 2 to 33. There was an enquiry under Chapter XVIII of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the said opposite parties were committed to the Court of Session at Purulia under Sections 120-B, 147, 148, 149, 302 and 436 of the Indian Penal Code. The case is now pending trial before the Sessions Judge, Purulia.

( 2 ) THE petitioner has obtained this Rule with a view to get the case transferred from the Sessions Court at Purulia to some other Sessions Court for trial. The State has entered appearance and Mr. Banerjee, the learned Deputy Legal Remembrancer, informs us that the State neither supports nor opposes the Rule. Mr. Mukherjee appears for the opposite parties Nos. 2 to 33 and opposes this Rule.

( 3 ) MR. Mukherjee at the outset takes two preliminary objections. He submits that the petitioner makes no aspersion or allegation against the Sessions Judge and so, there is no scope for transfer of the case from his Court under Section 526 (1) (a) of the Code. We find that the petitioner's application bears a heading "an application under Section 526 (1) (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. " Mr. Banerjee, who appears for the petitioner, concedes that the application is not really an application under Section 526 (1) (a) of the Code but is an application under Section 526 (1) (e) of the Code and the heading contains an unfortunate mistake. It is true that there is no aspersion or allegation against the Sessions Judge, Purulia, before whom the case is now pending for trial and so, the case does not really fall under Clause (a) of Section 526 (1) of the Code. Since the matter is now before us, we will have to consider if it does fall under Clause (e) of Section 526 (1) of the Code and if it does, we do not think that we are incompetent to make an appropriate order for transfer only because the heading of the application makes it an application under Clause (a) of Section 526 (1) of the Code. This objection raised by Mr. Mukherjee does not, therefore, lead us to discharge the Rule on that ground.

( 4 ) MR. Mukherjee's other preliminary objection is that the petitioner has no locus standi to make an application for transfer under Section 526 of the Code in the instant case. The case is being conducted by the State. But the police took cognizance of the case on some first information report lodged by the petitioner. The question for consideration, therefore. arises if the petitioner can be said to be a "party interested" within the meaning of Sub-section (3) of Section 526 of the Code. Sub-section (3) reads as follows:--"a High Court may act either on the report of the lower Court, or on the application of a party interested, or on its own initiative. " mr. Mukherjee submits that the words "party interested" do mean and include only the State and the accused persons, the person on whose information the police took cognizance is not a "party interested", because at the trial he is not interested as it is a State prosecution. It is difficult to accept this interpretation of the words "party interested". The word "party" is not defined in the Code. The dictionary meaning is "each of the two or more persons making two sides in legal action". But then, in Sub-section (3) the word "party" is qualified by the word "interested". The person at whose instance the prosecution was started is certainly interested in the case and the "party interested" should also include such a person, Mr. Mukherjee refers to the unreported decision of a Division Bench of this Court in Criminal Misc. Case No. 86 of 1946 (Cal), Bihari Lal Mondal v. Brindaban Pramanik, where this Court said that when a prosecution is founded on a complaint of a Court under Section 476 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a person moving the court to take the action cannot be considered to be a 'party