The judgment establishes the importance of meeting specific criteria for unlawful assembly and emphasizes the restricted scope of certain sections of the Penal Code in cases related to public order or security.

Petitioners are the accused who are arrayed before the Judicial Magistrate of Second Class. Moovattupuzha in Crime No. 79 of 1982 (of the Koothattukulam Police Station). The offences alleged against them are under Ss. 143, 149, 121-A and 124-A of the Penal Code and S. 131(1)(b) of the Representation of the People Act. They have approached this court seek its inherent powers to quash the proceedings before the Magistrate on the ground that even on the allegations made against them by the police, they could not be convicted for the offences aforementioned and the continuation of the proceedings before the Magistrate would only be an abuse of the process of court.

2. To appreciate the contentions advanced on behalf of the petitioners it is necessary to take note of the actual complaint made against them. What is stated in the first information is. It is further elucidated that what the people were asked to vote for in the parallel booth was on the question whether they approve of the bourgeois elections.

3. Section 143 of the Penal Code prescribes the punishment for being a member of an unlawful assembly. An assembly of five or more persons is designated as "an unlawful assembly" if the common object of the persons composing that assembly is to overawe by criminal force or show of criminal force the Central or any State Government or Parliament or the Legislature of any State or any public servant in the exercise of the lawful power of such public servant or to resist the execution of any law or of any legal process or to commit any mischief or criminal trespass, or other offence or by means of criminal force or show of criminal force, to any person, to take or obtain possession of any property, or to deprive any person of the enjoyment of aright of way or of the use of water or other incorporeal right of which he is in possession or enjoyment or to enforce any right or supposed right : or by means of criminal force or show of criminal force to compel any person to do what he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do (S. 141 I.P.C.) only if the aforesaid ingredients are there the assembly of persons becomes unlawful. Where the common object of the assembly whatever be their number is not one or more of the object's specified above, it will not constitute an unlawful assembly. It might be noted here tat the mere fact that an assembly consists of five or more persons or is likely to disturb the public peace does not prove that the common object of the assembly is one of those enumerated in the Section. But then there Section 151 of the I.P.C. may come in. And it has been held that the common object must be an immediate one and not to be carried out at some future time.

See. Shoukat Ali v. State (AIR 1954 Pat : 194) : (1954 Cri LJ 485) : C. V. Devassikutty v. State (AIR 1953 Trav-Co 275 at 278 & 280) : (1953 Cri LJ 1301 at p. 1304 & 1306) and King Emperor v. Nag Tun Maung (AIR 1925 Rangoon 362 at 363) : (1926-27 Cri LJ 337 at p. 338). It is impossible to say that in this case on the allegations in the police report Section 143, I.P.C. will come in.

4. Nor would Section 149 I.P.C. is attracted as a consequence. Though (S. 1512 I.P.C.) is not alleged, it is also of no relevance here because no complaint is there that there is likelihood of causing public disturbance on account of the action alleged against the petitioners.

5. Now it has to be considered whether the allegations of the police if accepted would bring in Sections 121-A and 124-A of the I.P.C. Section 121-A will be attracted if anybody wages or attempts to wage war against the Government of India or conspires to overawe by means of criminal force or by show of criminal force the Central or state Government. The expression waging war has neither been defined in the Code not in the General Clauses Act. A Division bench of the Calcutta High Court had said in an early case that the expression must be understood in its ordinary di