The main legal point established in the judgment is that for the court to take cognizance of an offence committed by a notary, a written complaint by an authorized officer is required as per Section 13 of the Notaries Act, 1952.

( 1 ) BY this petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter referred to as 'the Code') and Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has prayed to quash chargesheet No. 135 of 2005 dated 23rd July, 2005 qua the present petitioner.

( 2 ) THE facts of the case stated briefly are that the respondent No. 2 herein had fled the First Information Report with the rander Police Station, Surat being C. R. No. 1-135 of 2005 for the offences punishable under Sections 467, 468, 471 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code. The allegations in the F. I. R. are to the effect that the complainant is the owner of an agricultural land bearing Block No. 981 of revenue Survey No. 952 of village Variyav which is running in the name of Dahyabhai dwarkadas Patel, the father of the complainant, in the revenue record. According to the complainant, his father had expired on 2nd March, 1999. However, necessary mutation entry has not been effected in the revenue record. It is the case of the complainant that on 16th February, 2005, a person came to his house and enquired whether the land owned by him was to be sold. The said person showed him a copy of the general power of attorney allegedly executed by the complainant's father wherein the name of the complainant's father was stated to be dahyabhai Durlabhbhai Patel instead of dahyabhai Dwarkadas Patel. The said power of attorney was executed in favour of one Mohanbhai Govindbhai Gajera. In the said document, the name of the person who had identified the executor is Bharatbhai vallabhbhai Patel and the name of the witness is Hasanbhai Kasambhai Multani. The advocate who identified those persons is stated to be one Mr. Narendra Tiwari and the said document is stated to have been notarized by the present petitioner. It is alleged in the F. I. R. that by making a forged document; the accused attempted to sell the agricultural land belonging to the complainant and thereby committed the alleged offence.

( 3 ) PURSUANT to the filling of the aforesaid F. I. R. , investigation was carried out which culminated into filing of the impugned chargesheet dated 23th July, 2005. It appears that subsequently the learned judicial Magistrate First Class, surat has taken cognizance on the basis of the aforesaid chargesheet and the case has been registered as Criminal Case No. 1925 of 2005.

( 4 ) MR. Asim Pandya, learned advocate for the petitioner submitted that the investigation papers do not make out any criminal case against the present petitioner. It is not stated in the F. I. R. or the statement of witnesses that the so-called general power of attorney was defective in any manner so as to infer the involvement of the present petitioner. It was submitted that two persons including the advocate Mr. Narendra Tiwari had identified the witnesses and the executor. Once the legal requirement for notarizing the document is fulfilled, the petitioner is bound to notarize the document, Merely notarizing the document that was subsequently found to be a forged document does not ipso facto entitle the investigating Officer to implicate the notary.

( 5 ) THE main plank of the submissions advanced by the learned Advocate for the petitioner was that in view of the provisions of Section 13 of the Notaries Act, 1952, the court cannot take cognizance of any offence committed by a Notary in exercise or purported exercise of his functions under the said Act, unless a complaint in writing has been made by an officer authorised by the Central Government or a State government by general or special order in this behalf. It was accordingly submitted that in view of the prohibition condition in section 13 of the Act, the learned udicial magistrate could not have taken cognizance of the complaint qua the present petitioner unless the same was made in writing as envisaged under the provisions of Section 13 of the Act.

( 6 ) IT was submitted that in view of the nature of the allegations made in the