( 1 ) THIS Revision touches a fundamental question, namely, the foundation of the revisional powers of the High Court under the Code of Criminal Procedure. The facts of the case are simple. The two applicants are alleged to be prostitutes or dancing girls of the town of Oral. The Municipal Board of Orai made a complaint to a first class Magistrate alleging that their house was being used for the purpose of habitual prostitution to the annoyance of respectable inhabitants of the locality, and requesting for action against them under Section 247 (1), U. P. Municipal Act (Act 2 of 1916 ). The learned Magistrate summoned the applicants, took the evidence of the witnesses for the parties on oath, found the Boards complaint justi-fied and passed an order under Section 247 (1)forbidding the applicants from using their house for habitual prostitution. They went up in revision to the Sessions Judge, but having failed there have now come up to this Court seeking a reversal of the Magistrates order.

( 2 ) A preliminary objection raised on behalf of the Municipal Board is that no revision lies.

( 3 ) THE revisional powers of the High Court are defined in Section 439, Criminal P. C. This provision of the law empowers the High Court to pass such orders as it may deem fit in the case of a proceeding the record of which it has called for under Section 435, or which has been reported to it under Section 438 after an examination under Section 435. A reference to Section 435, Criminal P. C. is therefore necessary for the decision of the preliminary objection. Now, under this section the record of the proceeding has to be of any inferior Criminal Court", from which it clearly follows that the revisional powers of the High court are strictly limited to orders which are passed by any inferior "criminal Court. "

( 4 ) UNFORTUNATELY the term "criminal Court" has not been defined in the Code, but the learned counsel for the Municipal Board relied on the decision of Seth J. of this High Court in --

"madho das v. Rex, AIR 1949 All 738 (A), in support of his contention that in a case like the present the magistrate did not act as a Criminal Court. Seth J. had before him an order under Section 310 (2), U. P. Municipalities Act passed by a bench of Magistrates, and the question of maintainability of a revision against that order was specifically raised before him. In deciding whether or not the Bench had acted as a "criminal court" he laid down a test which appears from the following passage in his judgment : "in the present case the Bench of Magistrates was neither trying the applicant for any offence nor was it holding any enquiry into the commission of an offence or crime. It Was not conducting any proceeding contemplated by the Code of Criminal Procedure and was not exercising any power of the Magistrate detailed in Schedule 3 of the Code. I am therefore of the opinion that the proceedings under Section 310 (2), Municipalities Act, were not criminal proceedings and therefore the record which has been called for by this Court is not the record of the proceedings of an inferior Criminal Court.

An order under Section 310 (2) is analogous to one under Section 247 (1), and since there does not appear to be any other decision of this High Court, the ruling of Seth J. should be binding on me. But on behalf of the applicants doubt has been thrown on the correctness of his Lordships ruling, and it is submitted on their behalf that his decision requires reconsideration.

( 5 ) THEY claim to fortify their contention with two earlier single Judge decisions of this Court--mt. Imaman v. Emperor, AIR 1920 All 176 (B) decided in 1920 by Banerji J. , and -- basanti v. Emperor, AIR 1. 925 All 245 (C), decided in 1925 by Daniels J. Both were revisions against orders passed by a Magistrate under Section 247 (1), Municipalities Act. No doubt in neither case was the question of the competency of the revisions raised specifically, but the very fact that they were admi