Criminal trespass under Section 448, Penal Code, requires the accused to enter a place with the intention to cause insult, annoyance, or injury to the person in possession of the place. The Attestation Officer was not in exclusive possession of the camp and the petitioner did not enter with the intention to cause insult, annoyance, or injury.

( 1 ) THE petitioner was convicted under Section 448, Penal Code, and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 100/- in default to suffer rigorous imprisonment for four months. The trial was held by a Magistrate of Kalna upon two charges under Sections 186 and 448, Penal Code. The charge of offence relating to obstruction to a public servant under Section 186 I. P. C. was found unsustainable by the learned trying Magistrate on the ground that a proper complaint had not been made in accordance with the provisions of Section 195, Criminal P. C. The result was that the learned Magistrate acquitted the petitioner of the charge of offering obstruction to the public servant concerned in the discharge of public functions and the petitioner was convicted of the other charge under Section 448, I. P. C. , and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 100/-, in default to suffer rigorous imprisonment for four months.

( 2 ) THE case for the prosecution briefly stated was that at an Attestation Camp proceedings were going on on 4-8-1954. The Attestation Officer was according interests in Mouja Purba Khanpur in which the Gon Babus of Putsuri were interested as Darpatnidars. An agent of the Gon Babus was representing them and certain collection papers were placed for consideration of the Attestation Officer. The Officer however was not satisfied with the manner in which information asked for was being supplied and he asked the agent of the Gon Babus to go back to the kutchery and send somebody who was really in a position to assist him. At about 11-30 A. M. the petitioner, who was one of the proprietors of this estate, entered the attestation camp and appeared to be an temper. He remonstrated with the attestation officer that the documents were there to which reference could be made for the purpose of completing his records and that there was no occasion whatever for the attestation officer to send for him. At this the attestation officer became very much annoyed and told the petitioner to clear out. The petitioner then flew into rage and uttered objectionable words to the effect that he would teach him a lesson and so on. This evidently caused some disturbance in the office and then a report was made as a result of which the petitioner came to be tried upon charges under Sections 186 and 448, I. P. C.

( 3 ) THE petitioner denied the charges that had been framed against him and his case seems to be that the prosecution evidence is a gross exaggeration of what

exactly happened at the Camp. It is further the case for the defence that the petitioner did not come to the place on his own but that he had been sent for and he came on invitation from the attestation officer.

( 4 ) THE learned Magistrate acquitted, as I have said above, the petitioner on the ground that there was no valid complaint against him for the alleged offence of offering obstruction to a public servant but convicted and sentenced him of criminal trespass under Section 448, I. P. C.

( 5 ) ON behalf of the petitioner Mr. Banerjee has argued that the substance of the case against the petitioner is that he had offered obstruction to the public servant concerned in the discharge of his duty. That allegation rela ing as it does to a charge under Section 186, I. P. C. , required a complaint in accordance with the procedure laid down in Section 195 (1), Criminal P. C. There having been no such complaint the learned Magistrate had no alternative but to acquit the accused of the charge under that section. As regards the remaining charge under Section 448 Mr. Banerjee has contended that this is nothing but the offence of offering obstruction to a public servant in a different garb which could not be tried without a proper and valid complaint.

( 6 ) IT appears to me that there is substance in Mr. Banerjee's contention. The real complaint in this case is that there was obstruction to a public servant in the discharge of public functions. Now it is an offence which is covered by S