The main legal point established in the judgment is the authority of the Magistrate to order the return of seized property as a temporary measure and the necessity for such orders to be specified under the appropriate provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The Kundara Police Inspector having registered Crime No. 73 of 1959 under S. 448, S. 454 and S. 505(4)(sic) of the Indian Penal Code against three accused, arrested accused 1 and 3 and took them to the Police Station after locking the house with the key produced by the accused. The accused filed a petition for the return of the key they produced before the police which was allowed the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Quilon. Aggrieved by this order the first informant has come up in revision.

2. A few facts may be referred to in the disposal of this Revision Petition. The first informant assigned the house alleged to have been trespassed upon and the compound in which it is situated to his daughter for her streedhanam and she and her husband were in occupation of the house for about 10 months after their marriage. After that her husband left the place in search of a job and did not return. Thereafter the house was occupied by the daughter and the petitioner's wife. Occasionally they used to go and live with the petitioner in his house.

On 03-05-1959 they locked up the house and went over to the petitioner's house and when they returned on the 6th they found the house broken into and respondents 1 to 3 (accused 1 to 3 in the First Information Report) in occupation. Accused 1 is the uncle of the petitioner's daughter's husband and accused 3 is his wife. When the daughter and her mother remonstrated, the accused threatened to use criminal force. On these allegations the petitioner lodged a complaint with the Kundara Police on 09-05-1959 at 10-15 A.M. The police after recording the statement and registering the case proceeded to the house. There they found accused 1 and 3 in occupation of the house. Sundry articles belonging to them were also in the house.

The petitioner produced a key alleging that to be the key with which his daughter had locked up the house when she left it three days back, but it was found that it did not fit the lock. The accused then produced another key which fitted. The police prepared a mahazar which describes the two keys and the lock and notes the existence of signs to indicate that the lock then found was newly fixed to the door and that the key produced by the accused was newly made. They then straightway arrested accused 1 and 3, locked up the house and produced the accused before court the next day retaining the key in their possession.

3. The accused applied for bail the same day alleging that they were in occupation of the house for some time past and that the case taken up with the sole object of forcibly dispossessing them. They were released on interim bail and the order was finalised on the 13th. On the 13th the 1st accused filed a petition reaffirming the pica that he and his wife were in actual possession of the house and were dispossessed and the keys taken from them. They asserted that the food which was being cooked at the time of their arrest can be found in that condition if a proper Mahazar is prepared. They prayed that an officer of court may be deputed to prepare a mahazar and also that the keys taken from them may be returned to them.

The same day the court passed an order directing the Circle Inspector to get a mahazar of the house prepared. As the mahazar was not prepared till the 22nd of the month the accused filed a fresh petition for the same reliefs prayed for in the earlier petition. Accordingly the mahazar was prepared by the police noting the existence of half cooked rice in the kitchen and also several other household articles. After the mahazar was prepared on the 23rd the 1st accused again moved the court by a petition alleging that he and his family were suffering much inconvenience because their house was locked up and praying that the keys of the house taken from his possession may be entrusted to him on kychit to be produced as and when required by the court. On the 30th the court passed the order, which is the subject matter of this revision.

When the first accused file