The High Court has no jurisdiction to grant anticipatory bail for offences committed outside the State.

( 1 ) IT is a matter of anticipatory bail under section 438, Cr. P. C. in connection with the offences committed outside this State. Several outstation cases are pending in the list under the heading Anticipatory Bail before this Bench.

( 2 ) AT the Initial stage of hearing, the learned Advocate for the petitioner has referred to the Full Bench Decision of this High Court in case of Sailesh Jaiswal v. State, The question which was referred to and decided by the Full Bench was whether the High Court or Sessions Court having no territorial jurisdiction over the place where offence was committed could exercise the power of granting anticipatory bail or not.

( 3 ) IT appears, majority of the Judges concurred to the judgment written by Honble Mr. Justice Basudeva Panigrahi. It further appears from the said judgment, that several decisions touching the point in question were placed before that Full Bench. Out of the catena of decisions referred to the Full Bench, the Full Bench decision of the Patna High Court in the case of Syed Zafrul Hassan v. State, appears to have carried more weight with the Judges of the Full Bench of this court. The said Full Bench decision of the Patna High Court as mentioned above lays down that in the matter of granting anticipatory bail, the jurisdiction of the Sessions Court and High Court should remain confined to the territorial jurisdiction, that means, the Court must have jurisdiction over the place where the offence was committed. It is further laid down that question of residence of the accused or the place of apprehension of arrest would not create any jurisdiction.

( 4 ) AGAINST such back-ground we find, paragraph 21 of the Full Court decision of the Calcutta High Court as referred to above, contains the specific views of this High Court, It is clearly laid down in that paragraph that the reasonings contained in the Full Bench Decision of the Patna High Court appears to be more reasonable and convincing and as such the Judges of the Full Court in Jaiswals case (supra) agreed to the views and relied upon the same. Against that back-ground it should be reasonably presumed that the place of residence of the accused or apprehension of arrest in the mind of the accused would not create the jurisdiction under Section 438, Cr. P. C. But towards the concluding part of paragraph 24 of the said decision it is laid down, that the exercise of jurisdiction of anticipatory bail by any other Court namely the High Court or the Court of Sessions beyond the local limits of the jurisdiction is limited to the extent of consideration of a bail for the transitional period but, it has no jurisdiction to transgress into the limits of the local jurisdiction of the Court within which offence is alleged to have been committed?

( 5 ) THE learned Advocate appearing for the petitioner has given stress on this part of the judgment and has submitted that for the transitional period this Court may grant anticipatory bail for a limited period.

( 6 ) ON the other hand in the selfsame judgment the then Chief Justice of this Court, namely Mr. Justice Prabha Shanker Mishra, in his deliberation has made it clear that the jurisdiction under Section 438, Cr. P. C. shall be exercised by the Sessions Judge or the High Court within the territorial jurisdiction of which the offence was committed. It has been made clear that passing any direction to any Court outside the State, where the territorial jurisdiction does not extend, would be an exercise in excess of the power conferred by the Statute. But at the same time in paragraph 37 of the self-same judgment, the Honble Ex-Chief Justice clearly expressed that he concurred with the view expressed by the Honble Mr. Justice Basudeva Panigrahi.

( 7 ) THUS we find the seed of confusion in the self-same judgment the definition of High Court as contained in section 2 (e) of the Criminal Procedure Code lays down High Court' means: (1) In relation to any State, the High