Both these cases have been referred to a Full Bench. In both the cases a First Information Report was lodged with the police against the applicant in which it was alleged that the applicant had committed a cognizable offence and the police was investigating the matter.

In both these cases the applicant has not yet been arrested and made application under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (hereinafter

to be referred to as the Code and prayed that the First Information Report be quashed. It is further prayed that the arrest of the petitioner be stayed (obviously during the pendency of the application ).

When these applications came up for hearing, on the basis of a Division Bench decision of this Court in the case of Putt an Singh v. State, 1987 (24) ACC 268 : 1987 AWC 404, it was urged by the learned counsel for the State that the application was not maintainable and arrest could not be stayed,

4. . Mr. Justice S. I. Jafri before whom these cases came up, has referred the. cases to a larger Bench under the proviso (b) to sub-rule (ix) of Rule 2, Chapter V, of the Rules of Court, 1952. He directed that the papers be placed before the Honble the Acting Chief Justice for constituting a Bench consisting of not less than five Judges for answering the questions :

(i) Whether under Section 482, Cr. P. C. , the High Court has inherent power to interfere with the investigation by the Police ?

(ii) Whether the High Court has powers to stay arrest during investiga tion ?

(iii) Whether the decision reported in 1987 AWC 404 lays down a correct proposition of Law ?

5. In the case of Put tan Singh (supra), Mr. Justice B. N. Katju and Mr. Justice B. L. Yadav delivered separate but concurring judgments. The prayer made in the application under Section 482 of the Code for staying the arrest of the applicant during the pendency of the application under Section 482 of the Code was rejected.

Mr. Justice Katju ralying upon the judgment of the Privy Council in the case of Emperor v. Khwaja Nazir Ahmad, AIR 1945 1jc 18 and a number of other decisions of the Supreme Court in which the decision of the Privy Council in Khwaja Nazir Ahmeds case (supra), has been approved of, and followed in, held that where a First Information Report disclosed, prima facie, the commission of a cognizable offence, the Court could not interfere with the investigating by the Police. It was held that the arrest was a step in the investigation of a crime by the Police and as such it could not be stayed.

Mr. Justice Yadav agreed with Mr. Justice Katju, but he observed that he wanted to add few words. Having quoted Section 482 of the Code which is in identical term with Section 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Code of 1898), Mr. Justice Yadav held that the words or otherwise to secure the ends of justice to be found in the latter part of Section 482 of the Code had to be read Ejusdem Generis with the earlier part of the section. He, therefore, confined the powers of the High Court, under Section 412 of the Code, to cases where an order under the Code had been made or any process of Court had been issued.

When this reference came up for hearing us, the learned Advocate General, who, at the request of the Court, has appeared in this case, very seriously attacked the referring order and contended that the reference was incompetent.

8-A Normally, in this judgment, we would have first dealt with the objec tions raised by the learned Advocate General which were. in a sence preliminary objections to the maintainability of the reference, but we propose to deal with them at the end of this judgment because of certain unusual features in this case.

9. In the code of 1898, as it was originally enacted, Section 561-A was not there. Section D61-A was introduced in the Code of 189$ by the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 1923. Prior to the amendment, only the Presidency High Court had, within the limits of the Presidency

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