Govinda Menon, J.-By his order in M.C.No.13 of 1950, dated the 14th March, 1950, the District Magistrate of Gooty held that the respondent in this Court, should be allowed to take possession of the land in dispute and retain the same till a competent civil Court decides the dispute between the parties; and aggrieved by that order the petitioners have moved this Court to revise the order of the District Magistrate.

The respondent presented a petition under section 145, Criminal Procedure Code, before the District Magistrate of Gooty on 15th October, 1949, and it was alleged that on 3rd October, 1949, he had been wrongfully dispossessed by the opposite party and wanted the Court to decide the question of possession and put him back in possession. A preliminary order under section 145(4), Criminal Procedure Code, was passed on 25th January, 1950, that is more than two months not only after the date of dispossession but after the date of presentation of the petition. On the finding that the petitioner in the lower Court was entitled to possession, the learned District Magistrate, following two decisions of this Court held that the two months period contemplated in the proviso to section 145(4), Criminal Procedure Code, should be deemed to be from the date when the petition was presented and therefore directed restoration of possession to the respondent in this Court. Somasundaram, J., before whom the Criminal Revision Petition first came on for hearing, finding that there is a conflict of decision on this point in this Court referred the matter to be heard by a Bench.

Section 145(1), Criminal Procedure Code, contemplates that when any of the classes of Magistrates mentioned therein is satisfied from a police report or other information that a dispute likely to cause a breach of the peace exists concerning any land or water or the boundaries thereof, within the local limits of his jurisdiction, he shall make an order in writing stating, the grounds of his being so satisfied, and requiring the parties concerned in such dispute to attend his Court in person or by pleader, within a time to be fixed by such magistrate and to put in written statements of their respective claims as respects the fact of actual possession of the subject of dispute. This is the preliminary order contemplated by the section and when such preliminary order has been passed and served in the manner provided by the Code, on the date to which the petition stands posted for hearing, the magistrate shall, without reference to the merits of the claims of any of such parties to a right to possess the subject of dispute, peruse the statements so put in, hear the parties, receive all such evidence as may be produced by them, consider the effect of such evidence, take such further evidence as he thinks necessary, and, if possible, decide whether any and which of the parties was in possession at the date of the preliminary order passed by him; and the proviso lays down that if it appears to the magistrate that any party was, within two months next before the date of such order, been forcibly and wrongfully dispossessed, he may treat the party so dispossessed, as if he had been in possession at such date. The words “at the date of the order” in sub-section (4) refers to the order contemplated in sub-section (1), i.e., the preli- minary order and the meaning to be given to the words “the date of such order” in the proviso, is the question for consideration.

In Chinchilada Krishna Raju v. Chintalaswami Naidu1, Wallace, J., was not prepared to subscribe to the proposition that a party taking possession by force must be retained in possession if, owing to delay after the dispossessed party has asked the Court to take action, on the part of the Court taking action, over two months have elapsed before the Court finally makes up its mind to issue a preliminary order. Therefore the learned Judge was inclined to hold that an aggrieved party coming to Court with a complaint of having

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