Sanjay K. Agrawal, J.

Petitioner is an advocate working as a Notary duly appointed under the provisions of the Notaries Act, 1952 (hereinafter called as 'Act of 1952') and Rules made thereunder, while discharging his duty of Notary under the provisions of Act of 1952 and Rules made thereunder, he authenticated an Anubandh/Agreement on 18th /19th December 2004 in presence of two witnesses viz. Sukhdev Singh and Rajkumar Gupta. Thereafter respondent/complainant herein filed a complaint under Sections 465, 467, 468, 471, and 474 read-with Section 120-B of the IPC against the accused therein including the petitioner herein alleging commission of above-mentioned offences, in which the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, by order dated 25- 01-2016 took cognizance of offences under Section 420 read-with Section 120-B of the IPC against the accused person including the petitioner.

2. The petitioner herein calls in question the said order taking cognizance of above-stated offences inter alia contending that such a cognizance of offence against him (Notary) is expressly barred by provisions contained in Section 13(1) of the Act of 1952, as such, cognizance taken by the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class deserves to be set aside.

3. None appears for the respondent, though served. No reply has been filed.

4. Mr. Abhishek Sinha, learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that such a cognizance taken is expressly barred by provisions contained in Section 13(1) of the Act of 1952 as the provisions contained in Section 13(1) of the Act of 1952 is mandatory in nature, as such, order taking cognizance is expressly barred and deserves to be set aside.

5. I have heard learned counsel for the petitioner, considered his submission made herein-above and went through the record with utmost circumspection.

6. In order to appreciate the submissions, it would be appropriate to notice Section 13(1) of the Act of 1952 which states as under:-

(1) No court shall take cognizance of any offence committed by a notary in the exercise or purported exercise of his functions under this Act save upon complaint in writing made by an officer authorised by the Central Government or a State Government by general or special order in this behalf.

A careful perusal of above-stated provision would show that the legislature in its wisdom has mandated that no court shall take cognizance of any offence committed by a Notary in the exercise or purported exercise of his functions under this Act except on complaint in writing made by the officer authorised by Central Government or a State Government by general or special order.

7. It is settled law that the mode of showing a clear intention that the provision enacted is mandatory, is by clothing the command in a negative form. Crawford in its Statutory Construction (p. 523) has observed as under:-

“Prohibitive or negative words can rarely, if ever be directory. And this is so, even though the statute provides no penalty for disobedience.”

8. In the matter of M. Pentiah v. M. Muddala Veeramallappa, (1961) AIR SC 1107 Subbarao speaking for the Supreme Court observed as under:-

“Negative words are clearly prohibitory and are ordinarily used as a legislative device to make a statute imperative.”

9. Similar is the proposition laid down by the Supreme Court in the matter of Nasiruddin v. Sitaram Agrawal, (2003) 2 SCC 577

10. Justice G.P. Singh in his celebrated text, Principles of Statutory Interpretation 14th edition (p. 447) observed as under:-

“Section 7 of the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) special powers Act 1990, provides “No prosecution, suit or other legal proceedings shall be instituted except with the previous saction of Central Government against any person in respect of anything done or purported to be done in exercise of powers conferred by the Act. The Supreme Court held that use of word “No” in section 7 of the Act denotes mandatory requirement of obtaining prior sanction of Central Government. Before instit