1. Petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short, "Cr.P.C.").

2. The prayer in the petition reads as follows:

"On these and other grounds to be urged at the time of hearing it is most humbly prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to allow the Criminal Miscellaneous Case, set aside Annexure.E and direct the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court-II, Neyyattinkara to forward Annexure.C to the Vizhinjam Police Station under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure."

3. Petitioner is the complainant, who approached the learned Magistrate with a complaint, alleging that the accused have falsely created documents and filed the same in a civil suit between the petitioner and the accused. Allegation in the complaint is that the accused together forged documents to grab valuable land belonging to the complainant and thereby they committed offences punishable under Sections 193, 209, 465, 468 and 471 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, "IPC").

4. Annexure C is the complaint filed by the petitioner. The petitioner is the Director of a private limited company, running a hotel and resort. In order to expand the business of the company, they purchased about seven acres of land from various owners and constructed a compound wall enclosing the land. Accused with a nefarious intention of grabbing a portion of the land, created false documents by fabricating the signature and seal of Village Officer, Kottukal and filed a civil suit. They secured interim orders in the suit against the complainant. When the matter gained the attention of the complainant, he conducted an enquiry and found that the documents produced in the suit by the accused were fabricated with a malicious intention. Therefor, the complainant sought information under the Right to Information Act from the Village Office and got information to the effect that the documents produced by the accused in the suit are forged ones. Hence the complainant contended that the accused are liable to be prosecuted for the said offences.

5. Annexure A, the revenue receipt, is said to have been falsely created by the accused persons. Annexure B is the information received from the Village Officer concerned. According to the complainant, it makes his case probable that Annexure A is a rank forgery.

6. Trial court on receiving the complaint decided to conduct an enquiry under Section 200 Cr.P.C. Grievance of the petitioner is that the complaint ought to have been forwarded to Police under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. Therefore, he approached the court below with Annexure D petition. That was dismissed by the learned Magistrate as per Annexure E order. The reasoning stated by the learned Magistrate for dismissing the petition is that a criminal court has no jurisdiction to review its earlier order. No one can dispute this proposition so long as Section 362 Cr.P.C. bars a criminal court from reviewing or altering orders, except to correct a clerical or arithmetical error. Learned Magistrate is fortified in his decision by a binding precedent of the Supreme Court in Dharmeshbhai Vasudevbhai and others v. State of Gujarat and others ((2009) 6 SCC 576) also.

7. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Public Prosecutor.

8. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that considering the nature of allegations, the learned Magistrate at the first instance itself should have forwarded the complaint to Police under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. instead of proceeding to enquire into the matter under Section 200 Cr.P.C. Learned counsel would contend that the initial order and the impugned order passed by Magistrate resulted in miscarriage of justice.

9. Prayer made in the complaint is to forward the same to Police under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C.. This Court, at least in two decisions, has clearly held that a petition with a mere request that the same be forwarded for investigation to Police is not maintainable. It is the law that a Magi