A Special Court specified under Section 14 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is a Court of Session and it cannot take cognizance of any offence under the Act as a Court of original jurisdiction unless the case has been committed to it by a Magistrate under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

An application under Section 133 Crpc was filed by one Govendranjand alleging that the present revisionists have encroached upon public passage. Conditional order was passed. The revisionist appeared and relied against show cause notice issued to them. The Addl. City Magistrate (II), Agra vide his order dated 11-8-92 dropped the proceedings under Section 133, Crpc directing Govendranand to seek his remedy in a civil court. Aggriev ed by this order Govendranand preferred criminal revision No. 384 of 1992 which was decided on 1st. February, 1995 by Vth Addl. Sessions Judge, Agra. He was of the opinion that the proper procedure has not been followed and that compliance of Section 137 Crpc has not been made. He allowed the revision and remanded the matter back to Addl. City Magistrate (II) to decide the case in the light of the observations made in the body of judgment. Aggrieved by it Chiranji Lal and others have come to this Court in revision.

2. It has been argued that compliance of Section 137 Crpc has been duly made by the Magistrate concerned and that the revisional court was in error coming to the conclusion that the procedure dresser bed by Section 137 Crpc has not followed. This Section lays down the procedure where exis tence of public right is denied. It says that when the person against whom conditional order has been made appears and denied existence of any public right in respect of the way etc. , the Magistrate

shall before proceeding under Section 138 Crpc esquire into the matter and if such enquiry the Magistrate finds that there is any reliable evidence in support of such denial he shall stay the proceeding unless the matter of existence of such right has been decided by a competent court and if he finds that there is no such evidence he shall proceed as laid down in Section 138 Crpc. Sub-section (3) of Section 137 Crpc lays down that where a person failed to deny the existence of a public right or having made such denial has failed to adduce reliable evidence in support thereof shall not in subsequent proceedings be permitted to make any such denial. While proceeding under Section 137, Crpc the Magistrate is required to take evidence of opposite party alone and in case he came to the conclusion that the denial of existence of public right in respect of the way is bonafide then he would stay the proceedings and direct the other party to get the right established in a competent civil court.

3. The attention of the court has been initiated on page 2 of the judg ment o Addl. City Magistrate (II) in order to agree that the procedure as prescribed by Section 137 Crpc has been followed. I have gone through the entire judgment carefully, I find myself unable to come to the conclusion that the procedure as prescribed by Section 137 Crpc was followed. The Magis trate has started this page of the judgment saying that the evidence of both the parties have been taken and arguments have been heard. The conclusion of the judgment is that the passage which is being claimed is not a public passage and that from the papers filed by the appellant it has not been established beyond doubt that any such passage existed. Then he stated that a feet wide passage already exists which is being used by the persons going to the temple and that the passage has not been completely blocked. Ho then said that the proceedings under Section 138 Crpc are being dropped and the first party may seek his remedy in civil court.

4. From a perusal o. the order it does not at all appears that procedure a prescribed by Section 137 Crpc was followed. Had such procedure on following then the finding would have been that the denial of second party of 1973 Code refers to what the Magistrate should do. Does the Special Judge, therefore, become a Magistrate ? This is the fallacy of the whole approach. In tact, in order to give full effect to Section 8 (1), the only thing to do is to read Special Judge in Sections 238 to 250 wherever the express