The High Court has the power to quash or set aside proceedings at any stage, and the circumstances justifying its interference cannot be laid down with precision.

1. The accused was charged with misappropriation of paddy worth about Rs. 200. Summons was issued to him and he now moves the High Court and asks that the proceedings before the Magistrate should be quashed.

2. The learned Public Prosecutor has contended that the High Court has no power to interfere with the proceedings of a Magistrate in a pending trial. Whether this contention is correct depends upon the interpretation of Sections 435, 438 and 439 of the Criminal Procedure. Code.

3. Under Section 435 the High Court is empowered to call for and examine the record of any proceedings before any inferior Criminal Court, situate within the local limits of its jurisdiction, for the purpose of satisfying itself as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any finding, sentence or order recorded or passed and as to the regularity of any proceedings of such inferior Court. The section thus does not deal merely with "finding, sentence or order" but with proceedings generally and the power of the High Court extends to calling for and examining the record of any proceedings for the purpose of satisfying itself as to the regularity of such proceedings.

4. Under Section 438, the Sessions Judge or District Magistrate may, on examining the record of any proceedings, report for the orders of the High Court the result of such examination.

5. Then comes Section 439. It provides that in the case of any proceeding, the record of which has been called for by the High Court or which otherwise comes to its knowledge, it may, in its discretion, exercise any of the powers conferred on a Court of Appeal by certain sections of the Code. The learned Public Prosecutor contends that none of the sections specified in Section 439 gives the High Court power to set aside or quash proceedings in a pending suit. The answer is simple. The sections dealing with the powers of a Court of Appeal necessarily deal with those orders only from which under the Code there is an appeal provided. With reference to such orders, the sections lay down the powers of a Court of Appeal. Ex-hypothesi the revisional powers of the High Court are invoked when no right of appeal exists, and, although in some cases the High Court may, by exercising the powers conferred on a Court of Appeal, be able to correct an error, it does not follow, having regard to the variety of orders or proceedings which it may be called on to revise or deal with in its revisional jurisdiction, that it can, by exercising those powers only, redress a wrong or do complete justice. In other words, Section 439 does not say that the High Court shall exercise only those powers that are conferred on a Court of Appeal, but on the other hand it enacts that among the powers possessed by the High Court are the powers conferred on an Appellate Court. The sections dealing with the powers of an Appellate Court necessarily describe and define the powers of the Court with reference to orders that are appeal-able. The legislature in enumerating the powers of the Court of Appeal had before its mind only a certain class of orders and in the very nature of things that enumeration cannot be found complete or exhaustive when the Court is called on to deal with orders of a different kind, orders not in the contemplation of the legislature when it was defining the powers of a Court of Appeal.

6. I am therefore of the opinion, on a construction of the sections of the Code, that the High Court has power at any stage to quash or set aside proceedings.

7. The authorities on the point support this view; indeed there is not a single reported case which supports the contention of the learned Public Prosecutor.

8. The circumstances which will justify the interference of the High Court have not been and cannot be laid down with precision. While the Judges repeatedly held that only when exceptional grounds exist the High Court ought to interfere, the decided cases show that no hard and fast rule can be laid down but that when in the inter