The main legal point established in the judgment is that the High Court cannot revise an order passed by any Court other than a Criminal Court under Clause (b) or (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section 195 of the Code according sanction for the prosecution of any person who is alleged to have committed any of the offences referred to in that section.

Alfred Henry Lionel Leach, C.J.

1. Three matters have been placed before this Full Bench and they can be dealt with conveniently in the same judgment as they all involve the same question. The first case arises out of a suit which was tried by the Subordinate Judge of Tinnevelly. The plaintiff contended that a post card which had been put in evidence by the first and second defendants on the allegation that it had been written by the third defendant to the second defendant was a false document. Subsequently the plaintiff filed an application asking the Court to prosecute the three defendants under the provisions of Section 476 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for offences alleged to have been committed under Sections 463, 464, 471, 473 and 476 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court dismissed the application and the Subordinate Judges decision was upheld by the judgment of the District Judge on appeal. The plaintiff has now asked this Court to revise the order of the District Judge under the provisions of Sections 4Jo and 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and to direct the prosecution to take place. In the second case an application was made to the Court of the District Munsif of Tiruvarur by the petitioner, the assignee of a decree, to direct the prosecution of the respondents under Sections 206 and 207 of the Indian Penal Code. The application was granted by the District Munsif, but the respondents appealed to the District Judge of East Tanjore, who reversed the order of the District Munsif. The petitioner asks that the order of the District Munsif be restored by this Court under its powers of revision under Sections 435 and 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The third matter arises out of an application filed by the second defendant in a suit in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Mayavaram against the respondents. The application was rejected by the Subordinate Judge and on appeal to the District Judge of East Tanjore the decision was upheld. The petitioner asks this Court to direct under the provisions of Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure a complaint to be made.

2. Rule 57 of the Criminal Rules of Practice and Orders of this Court provides that every application made to a Criminal Court under the provisions of Sections 476, 476-A or 485, of the Code of Criminal Procedure and every appeal filed against an order made under these sections, or filed in a Court of Session against an order of a Court of Small Causes in the mufassal under Section 486 of the Code of Criminal Procedure shall be registered as a Criminal Miscellaneous Petition and a Criminal Appeal respectively. The rule further directs that such applications or appeals when filed in a Civil Court shall be registered as Civil Miscellaneous Petitions and Civil Miscellaneous Appeals respectively and states that the rule applies to revision petitions also. The question which the Court is called upon to decide is whether the petitions now under discussion shall be registered as Criminal or Civil Revision Petitions. |n the recent case of In re D.S. Raju Gupta AIR1939Mad472 , Pandrang Row, J., held that the jurisdiction which is exercised by a Civil Court in filing a complaint under Section 476 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is a jurisdiction exercised under that Code and that revision petitions to this Court should be filed on the Criminal Side and not on the Civil Side. The, learned Judge was of the opinion that Rule 37 was ultra vires. The question is one of considerable importance because the revisional powers of this Court under the Code of Criminal Procedure are greater than the powers conferred on it by Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Under the latter Code the Court can only interfere when a Subordinate Court appears to have exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or to have failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or to have acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity. Under S