A magistrate must apply his judicial mind in taking cognizance of an offence and must consider the relevant provisions of the law and the facts of the case.

K. P. MOHAPATRA, J.

( 1 ) THESE two criminal revisions arise out of 2 (b) CC Case No. 44/tr 309 of 1988 of the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Madanpur-Rampur. They were heard analogously and are disposed of by this order.

( 2 ) THE petitioner is the owner of a saw mill and deals with timber. Officers of the Forest and Police (Vigilance Departments raided the saw mill premises on 9-4-1988 and seized a huge quantity of round logs, sawn sized timber, documents and accounts valued at several lakhs of rupees by seizure-list (Annexure 1 ). Later a prosecution report was submitted in court on the allegation that the petitioner had committed offences under Section 45 of the Orissa Forest Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'), R. 4 of the Orissa Timber and other Forest Produce Transit Rules, 1980 and R. 14 (A) of the Orissa Forest Saw Pits and Saw Mills (Control) Rules, 1980 (hereinafter referred to as the "transit Rules" and "saw Pits and Saw Mills Rules" ). During the pendency of the case the petitioner applied for release of the logs and timber in his favour and the learned judicial Magistrate by order dt. 23-12-1988 directed release of the seized sleeper wood logs subject to furnishing of cash security of Rs. 1,00,000/ -. Obviously, the petitioner has not made the cash security deposit.

( 3 ) MR. M. Jain, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner raised the following contentions :- (1) On consideration of the prosecution report, as well as the seizure-list, and accepting the entire case of the prosecution as true no case has been made out and so the prosecution is liable to be quashed; and (2) In any view of the matter direction for deposit of cash security of Rs. 1,00,000/- is unreasonably high and so the petitioner should have been directed to offer property security. The contentions require examination.

( 4 ) IN column 5 of the original seizure list which is in the lower court record, the following fact has been stated :"the above timbers were seized during physical verification from the premises of Sankar Saw Mill as it did not tally with the stock register maintained by the company. "the word 'not' seems to have been added subsequent to the other writings of the column. According to Mr. Jain, the word 'not' was subsequently interpolated in column 5 of the seizure-list. As a matter of fact, when the seizure-list was written and a copy of it was handed over to the petitioner, the word 'not' did not find place in column 5. Therefore, if the word 'not' is omitted from column 5, no offence at all has been committed by the petitioner because the physical stock of logs and the seized logs and timber tallied with the book balance.

( 5 ) IT appears true that when the seizure-list was written the word 'not' did not find place in column 5 where it was subsequently added. It is also true that in the copy of the seizure-list handed over to the petitioner the said word was absent. But in the seizure-list of the lower court record the word 'not' finds place at the appropriate place although in other copies of the seizure-list the said word was not added. From these facts it appears very clear that when the seizure-list was written, the word 'not' was omitted from column 5 and was subsequently added. But the question is when it was added. According to Mr. Jain it was an act of interpolation behind the back of the petitioner in the court, but according to the learned Additional Government Advocate, there is no strict proof of and may be the investigating officer added the word 'not' in column 5 before the prosecution report along with the seizure-list was filed in the court. The best evidence to prove the interpolation would have been if the petitioner would have immediately obtained the certified copy of the seizure-list. If the alleged interpolation was done in the court record, then the certified copy of it obtained earlier to the interpolation would have shown it. Therefore, at this juncture and without a proper enquiry it is n