Nature of prosecution u/s 147 of the Code.

This is a criminal revision case which has been filed against the order made by the learned Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Tirupathur, in C.C.No.326 of 1951 which was confirmed by the District Magistrate of North Arcot in C.R.P. No.15 of 1952.

The facts are: A complaint was filed in the Court of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Tirupathur by one Dowlath against the District Forest Officer, Tirupathur Mr Dey and seven others. The complaint was that at about 11a.m. on 6th August, 1951, when the complainant was grazing his goats in the private land of one Abdul Rahim Sahib the District Forest Officer, who was accused 1 in the complaint directed the other accused, viz., accused 2 to 7 who were forest subordinates and the eighth accused, being a non-official, to take the animals to the pound and that some of the other accused accordingly drove away these animals and impounded them and that the District Forest Officer slapped the complainant on his cheek and kicked him resulting in injuries and directed some of the other accused to arrest the complainant and that the complainant was locked up in the Police station at Alangayam. The sworn statement of this complainant was substantially to this effect.

The learned Sub-Divisional Magistrate held that this complaint could not be entertained against A-1 for want of necessary sanction and therefore deleted the name of the first accused from the complaint and directed the case being proceeded against the other accused, viz., accused 2 to 8.

The learned District Magistrate before whom a revision petition was preferred found that the respondent, District Forest Officer, was obviously acting in his public capacity and not in his private capacity when he ordered the removal of the complainant’s animals from the land where they were grazing and their being impounded, that while clearly acting as District Forest Officer, Tirupathur, the respondent might have exceeded his powers in slapping and kicking the complainant but those acts were done by him not in his private capacity but in his public capacity as District Forest Officer, Tirupathur.

“Obviously the alleged assault by the respondent on the petitioner is no part of his official duties. As held in In re S.Y. Patil1 and in Subbareddi v. Swami Reddi2, sanction under section 197, Criminal Procedure Code, is essential before a Court can take cognizance of a complaint for an offence against a public officer as the public officer was acting throughout till the tune of the commission of the alleged offence in his official capacity, though the act constituting the alleged offence is not a part of his official duty.”

Therefore he dismissed the revision petition and hence this revision case.

In this case two points are involved, viz., first of all, whether the District Forest Officer did these acts attributed to him, while the grazing of the animals was on private land over which he had no jurisdiction, and secondly, whether he did assault this complainant as alleged by him and which the complainant was prepared to prove by means of a medical certificate and otherwise and whether in the event of the complainant affirmatively and satisfactorily proving that the animals were being grazed in the private land and that he was assaulted, it will have to be shown by the accused respondent whether the acts committed by him were in the discharge of his official duties or when purporting to discharge his official duties and then the question of sanction would arise. So on the mere contention of the respondent that even if he is assumed to have taken action when the grazing was upon a private land and he had assaulted the complainant, he would be protected under section 197, Criminal Procedure Code, is meaningless. It is not a pure question of law but a mixed question of fact and law and has to be decided after investigation and cannot be short-circuited by summarily throwing out the complaint. This has been made clear by me in Sakuntala Bai v. Venkatakrishna Red