The main legal point established in the judgment is that the wide jurisdiction vested in the High Court under Section 439 allows a party to approach the High Court directly without first moving the Sessions Judge or the District Magistrate.

SADASIVAN, J. :-

The question referred for the decision of the Full Bench is whether a party invoking the revisional jurisdiction vested under Section 435 Code of Criminal Procedure can straightway move the High Court or that he should first move the Sessions Judge or the District Magistrate and then only the High Court. The aggrieved party comes to this Court normally under S. 439 read with Section 435 of the Code. Section 435 reads :-

"The High Court or any Sessions Judge or District Magistrate, or any Sub-Divisional Magistrate empowered by the State Government in this behalf may call for and examine the record of any proceeding before any inferior Criminal Court situate within the local limits of its or his jurisdiction for the purpose of satisfying itself or himself as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any finding, sentence or order recorded or passed, and as to the regularity of any proceedings of such inferior Court and may, when calling for such record, direct that the execution of any sentence or order be suspended and, if the accused is in confinement, that he be released on bail or on his own bond pending the examination of the record."

If after perusal of the record called for under the above section, the Sessions Judge or the District Magistrate is of opinion that the order of the inferior Court needs correction or setting aside, he must under Section 438, report for the orders of the High Court, the result of such examination and when such report contains a recommendation that a sentence (or an order) be reversed or altered, he may order the execution of the sentence or order be suspended and, if the accused is in confinement, he be released on bail. In the case of the High Court on the other hand, when any proceeding the record of which has been called for by itself or which has been reported for orders or which otherwise comes to its knowledge, it is open to it in exercise of any of the powers conferred on a Court of Appeal by Sections 423, 426, 427 and 428, to impose the sentence. Thus the High Court alone can pass effective orders in correction of the order of the Subordinate Magistrate, and so the question is whether the party aggrieved can straightway come to this Court by-passing the Sessions Judge or the District Magistrate as the case may be.

We do not see any legal bar to a party coming direct to this Court without first moving the Sessions Judge or the District Magistrate and the practice, here, all along has been to entertain such petitions in the High Court direct. But in some States "a practice of long standing has grown up under which the High Court does not ordinarily entertain an application in revision unless the District Magistrate or the Sessions Judge has been moved first." A Division Bench of this Court in Devaki v. Kitta, 1967 Ker LT 31 : (AIR 1967 Ker 280) upholding the above practice and laying down and settling the procedure for this Court, has held that, a party invoking the revisional jurisdiction under Section 435 has no right to approach the High Court direct, without moving in the first instance, the Sessions Judge, who according to the learned Judges has concurrent revisional jurisdiction, with the High Court. The aforesaid Division Bench decision now stands in the way of a petition in revision under Section 435 being received in this Court direct. The learned Judges of the Division Bench have followed in support of their view a Division Bench ruling of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Veera Ramayya v. Udayagiri Venkata Seshavatharam, AIR 1956 Andhra 97. Chief Justice Subba Rao, on a review of the relevant authorities, observed in that case that the practice followed by all the High Courts except Madras, was, not to entertain revision directly in the High Court from orders of the Subordinate Magistrate, unless the aggrieved party in the first instance had moved the Sessions Judge or the District Magistrate as the case may be. Gopalan Nambiyar, J., speaking for the Be