Pius C. Kuriakose, J.

All these Criminal Miscellaneous Applications are before us pursuant to a reference order passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court Sri.V.K.Mohanan (J) on 18.01.11 in separate Criminal M.As in Criminal R.P. Nos. 1629/10,2542/10, 2664/10 and 2138/10 and by subsequent reference orders in other cases. The issue which requires to be resolved is whether the High Court will be justified in enlarging the time already fixed for payment of fine while disposing of Criminal R.Ps in exercise of its revisional powers under Sections 397, by resorting to its inherent powers under Sections 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code Incidentally the question to be decided is whether invocation of the powers under Sections 482 for the purpose of enlarging the time fixed under a judgment passed in revision is permissible in view of the limitations prescribed by Sections 362 of the Cr. P.C. which is to the effect that no court when it has signed its judgment or final order of disposal of a case shall alter or review the same except to correct clerical or arithmetical errors.

2. The Criminal Revision Petitions in all these cases were filed by accused persons challenging their conviction and sentence by the trial court and the appellate court for offences under Sections 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. This Court while disposing of the Criminal Revisions would confirm the conviction recorded by the Trial Court and the appellate court, yet would set aside the sentence and direct the accused to pay fine amounts with default sentence providing that on realisation of the fine amount, the same shall be paid to the complainant as compensation under Sections 357(1)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This Court had appointed firm dates under the orders passed in the Criminal Revision Petitions for appearance of the accused for payment of the fine amount and had also ordered that on failure to pay the fine amount, the trial court had the power to initiate coercive steps for securing the presence of the accused for the purpose of undergoing the default sentence of imprisonment. In all these cases, applications seeking enlargement of time were filed obviously as payment of fine was not made on or before the stipulated date. V.K. Mohanan (J) has in the reference order noticed the conflict between judgments of two learned Single Judges of this Court in A. C.Anwar v. State of Kerala (2007(2) KLD 646) and in Beena v. Balakrishnan Nair & Anr. (2010 (2) KLT 1017). It was noticed that while the judgment in A.C.Anwar's case (cited supra) takes the view that Sections 362 of the Cr. P. C. does not operate as a bar to the exercise of inherent powers under Sections 482, the latter decision in Beena's case (cited supra) rules clearly that inherent powers under Sections 482 of the Cr. P.C. are controlled by express powers of the court including the powers under Sections 362 and hence, while a revision has been disposed of finally on merits the High Court cannot have the power of reviewing the same except for the limited purposes stated in Sections 362 of the Cr. P. C. even under Sections 482 of the Cr. P.C. The Honourable V.K. Mohanan (J) in the reference order has stated that he shares the latter view but wants the issue to be resolved by a Bench of greater strength on considerations of propriety and the importance of the issue.

3. Very extensive submissions were addressed before us by the learned counsel for the applicants/revision petitioners Sri.Sunny Mathew, Sri.Alexander George, Sri.George Mathew, Sri.S.Krishna Kumar, Sri.K.C.Sudheer, Sri.A.P.Subhash, Sri. T.P.Pankajakshan, Sri.S.Santhosh Kumar, Sri .V.R.K.Kaimal, Sri. P.Bani, Sri.P.K.Mohanan, Sri. Sajan Varghese, Sri.Santhosh P. Poduval, Sri.K.Anand and Sri. P.V.Dileep. It was Sri.Sunny Mathew who piloted the arguments on behalf of the applicants/revision petitioners. He would draw our attention to various precedents and firstly to the two Single Bench judgments referred to in the ref