It involves a question of Law which is of general application and, therefore, requires an authoritative pronouncement by a Division Bench. The trend of the Madras decisions appears to be that till the final charge-sheet is filed, no cognizance could be taken. Mr. Chennakesava Reddy contends that though there are certain observations of the Supreme Court in Tara Singh v. The State1 and Rajagopala Ayyar v. State2, to the effect that the Magistrate takes cognizance on the filing of the preliminary charge-sheet itself and the final charge-sheet is only a supplemental charge-sheet, the facts of this case disclose that a preliminary charge-sheet was filed against A-1 to A-18 and later the Police resumed investigation and filed a final charge-sheet deleting A-16 to A-18. This Mr. Chennakesava Reddy contends the Police cannot do. As I said, the point being one of general applicability, it is necessary to have a ruling of a Division Bench. Accordingly, this revision is referred to a Division Bench.

In pursuance of the above order, this case came on for hearing before the Division Bench.

The Order of the Bench was made by Basi Reddy, J.-In this Criminal Revision case, which has been ref