The main legal point established in the judgment is that the trial courts should consider the implications of the agreement on the sustainability of the cases before proceeding with the trial, and the Sessions Judge should explore the possibilities of a settlement between the parties before hearing the appeal.

Pius, CJ

This petition is filed by the first respondent in Crl. Revision No. 4 of 2009 on the files of the Court below namely, the Sessions Court, East and North Sikkim at Gangtok, invoking not only the constitutional provisions under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India but also under Section 482 Cr. P.C. -the inherent jurisdiction of this Court, seeking quashment of order passed by the Court below setting aside orders of discharge, which had been given to the petitioner by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, East and North Sikkim at Gangtok in Private Complaint Case Nos. 2/2010, 03/2010 and by Judicial Magistrate’s Court in 13/2010, where the petitioner was the accused. Copies of the orders passed by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate have been placed on record by the petitioner in Private Complaint Case No. 2/2010 and 3/2010 respectively as Annexures P-2 and P-3, while Annexure P-4 is the order of discharge passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate (East & North) at Gangtok in favour of the petitioner and Annexures P-2 and P-3 are orders passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate subsequent to passage of the impugned order in revision by the learned Sessions Judge. This petition challenges those subsequent orders also.

2. The facts, briefly stated, are that the first respondent as complainant filed three private complaint cases against the petitioner under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 before the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (East & North) at Gangtok and, according to the petitioner, he and the complainant settled all their disputes involved in all the three cases between themselves and entered into an agreement on 26.06.2009. The petitioner says that on the basis of the agreement which he entered into with the respondents, he filed an application on 03.09.2009 before the trial Court seeking composition of the offences alleged against him and the Court on noticing the agreement entered into between the parties, which is not in dispute, disposed of all the three cases as compromised and the petitioner-accused was discharged. The complainant-respondent challenged the above order of discharge by filing three separate revision petitions before the Court of Sessions, East and North Sikkim at Gangtok.

3. The petitioner’s grievance is that the learned Sessions Court, though did not have jurisdiction to entertain the revisions did entertain the same and would set aside the order of discharge passed by the Magistrate and remit the three complaints back to the trial Court for resumption of trial. In the Memorandum of Writ Petition, the petitioner has raised various grounds of challenge against the common order passed by the Sessions Court. Inter alia, it is urged that the order passed by the Magistrate, which was challenged in revision before the Sessions Court had effected acquittal of the accused and hence the revisions were not maintainable.

4. It is urged that it is without properly applying the mind as to the contours of the jurisdiction under Section 378 (4) of Cr. P.C. that the learned Sessions Court entertained the revisions and ultimately allowed them. It is urged that the learned Sessions Court would have found that the remedy available to the respondent-complainant even if he had a genuine grievance was to file a regular appeal before this Court after obtaining leave. Apart from raising grounds of challenge against any order passed by the Sessions Court, the petitioner has raised grounds against the orders passed by the Magistrate pursuant to the common order passed by the Sessions Court and on the basis of the ground, it is prayed that the common order passed by the Sessions Court as well as the subsequent orders passed by the trial Court based on the above common order is set aside and the original order of discharge passed by the Magistrate is restored.

5. On entering appearance, the first respondent-complainant had filed a counter affidavit. Through the above counter aff