JUDGMENT :

KNOX, J.

Salig Ram instituted a suit against Ramji Lal and two others upon a bond in the Court of the Munsif of Grhaziabad. Subsequently he applied for sanction to withdraw the suit, and the suit was in conseouence dismissed. After the suit had been dismissed, Ramji Lal and his co-defendants applied to the Munsif for sanction to prosecute Salig Ram and Salig Ram's witness, on the ground that the bond upon which the suit had been instituted was a forged bond within the knowledge of Salig Ram and of his witnesses. Sanction was granted to the appiicauts to prosecute Salig Ram for offences punishable under sections 209, 464 and 471 of the Penal Code, 1860, and for the prosecution of the witnesses Tansukh and Banke for abetment of forgery. The Munsif of Grhazia-bad sitting as Munsif gave the sanction prayed for and the orders passed by him are to be found in Miscellaneous Civil Case No. 392 of 1904. This I learn from a copy of the order which has been filed in the present case. The District Judge of Meerut was asked to revoke the sanction thus given. Sitting as District Judge in Miscellaneous No. 14 of 1905, he passed an order refusing to interfere. That order has also been filed in the present case. It is an order such as is usually passed by a Civil Court. It contains a memorandum of the costs incurred by both the parties, a memorandum always to be found attached to orders passed by a Civil Court, but as invariably absent from orders passed by a Criminal Court. Salig Ram having failed in the Court of the District Judge, applied under section 622 of the Code of Civil Procedure for revision of the order of the District Judge of Meerut. Eventually this application, which forms part of the record of Civil Revision No. 34 of 1905 of this Court, came before two learned Judges of this Court. They inclined to the view that section 439 of the Code of Civil Procedure applies to a case like this, and that the case was not one which should be dealt with on the Civil Revisional side of the Court. They held that upon this point there was “a conflict of opinion in this Court. It was held in Moti Ram v. Niadar Mal (Weekly Notes, 1903, p. 170) that the High Court had jurisdiction to interfere in revision in a matter like this under section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. A contrary view was held in Muhammad Yakub v. Muhammad Tyab (Weekly Notes, 1903, p. 172).” Deeming it desirable that the question should be determined by a Full Bench they have referred it.

2. What then has to be considered is Whether this Court has power under section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to pass orders in revision upon sanction to prosecute a party or witness offender for any one of the offences specified in section 195 of the same Code given by an inferior Civil Court and revoked or confirmed by a superior Court of Civil Judicature, both Courts being subordinate to this Court, or whether this Court has under similar circumstances power to revise such order under section 622 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The power to call for proceedings of inferior Courts and to interfere with orders passed by them which, for the sake of brevity, I propose to, call its revisional power is not a power inherent in a dominant Court, at any rate so far as India is concerned. It is a power expressly conferred by Statute. It does not extend to all proceedings and to all orders of inferior Courts. Numerous instances might be quoted. I refer, for example, to section 435 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and to section 622 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

3. In the case of this Court while a power of superintendence is conferred over all Courts subject to our appellate jurisdiction by section 15 of Statute 24 and 25 Vic, Cap. civ., the revisional power in the case of each branch of jurisdiction is the creation of separate and distinct legislation. In the case of its criminal jurisdiction section 21 of the Letters Patent continues the powers as formerly possessed by the C