Jagadisan, J. -

These Civil Revision Petitions have been directed to be heard by a Division Bench by order of the learned Chief Justice in view of the importance of the question that is raised and, because, the decision of a single Judge of this Court in Kondammal v. Doraiswami Naicker, (1961) 1 MLJ. 284: (1961) MLJ. (Crl.) 191, is challenged as not having been correctly decided.

The undisputed facts are as follows. A dispute in respect of possession of certain lands gave rise to a proceeding under section 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code before the Revenue Divisional Officer, Usilampatti, who is the Executive First Class Magistrate, Usilampatti. Before the learned Magistrate one Peria Karuppa Thever and 9 others were the B Party and one Vellai alias Ocha Thevar constituted the A Party. The learned Magistrate, being apparently of the opinion that the question which party was in possession on the crucial date, namely, the date of the preliminary order could not be satisfactorily determined by him, referred the matter to the District Munsif of Tirumangalam. This procedure was adopted under section 146, Criminal Procedure Code. When the proceedings came on for hearing before t