ORDER

1. An office objection has been raised by the office, with regard to territorial jurisdiction of this Court.

2. The Petitioner is a former M.L.A. An FIR has been lodged against him in crime No.355/2024 at police station Dabra, Distt. Gwalior for offence under section 509 of IPC and under section 3(1)(r) of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

3. The undisputed fact is that when the alleged offence was committed, the petitioner was not the sitting M.L.A. and even today, he is not the sitting M.L.A. The only question which arises in the present case is that what is the meaning of word “former M.L.A./M.P.”

4. The Supreme Court in the case of Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and Others v. Union of India and Others reported in (2021) 20 SCC 613 has held as under :

“14. One of the main objectives behind issuing notice in the present writ petition, and the various orders that have been passed time to time by this Court, was to ensure that criminal prosecutions against elected representatives (MPs and MLAs) are concluded expeditiously. The Court was of the opinion that such special consideration was required not only because of the rising wave of criminalisation that was occurring in the politics in the country, but also due to the power that elected representatives (sitting or former) wield, to influence or hamper effective prosecution. Additionally, as legislators are the repositories of the faith and trust of their electorate, there is a necessity to be aware of the antecedents of the person that is/was elected. Ensuring the purity of democratically elected institutions is thus the hallmark of the present proceedings.”

5. In the light of various orders passed by the Supreme Court in the case of Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and Others v. Union of India and Others in W.P. (Civil) No. 699 of 2016, Special Courts have been established in State of M.P. to conduct the Trials of sitting as well as former M.L.A.s and M.P.s. The purpose behind establishing the Special Courts is to expedite the hearing of the cases registered by or against the sitting and former M.L.A.s and M.P.s. The object behind establishing the Special Court has already been clarified by the Supreme Court in its order dated 16.9.2020 (which has been quoted above), is due to the power that elected representatives (sitting or former) wield, to influence or hamper effective prosecution.

6. It is well established principle of law that “Purposive Interpretation” is the most proper way of interpretation.

7. The Supreme Court in the case of Vivek Narayan Sharma and Others (Demonetisation Case-5 J.) v. Union of India and Others reported in (2023) 3 SCC 1 has held as under :

“Purposive interpretation

133. We find that for deciding the present issue, it will also be necessary to refer an important principle of interpretation of statutes i.e. of purposive interpretation.

134. “Legislation has an aim, it seeks to obviate some mischief, to supply an inadequacy, to effect a change of policy, to formulate a plan of government. That aim, that policy is not drawn, like nitrogen, out of the air; it is evidenced in the language of the statute, as read in the light of other external manifestations of purpose [“Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes”, Columbia LR at p. 538].” This is how Justice Frankfurter succinctly propounds the principle of purposive interpretation.

135. It is thus necessary to cull out the legislative policy from various factors like the words in the statute, the Preamble to the Act, the Statement of Objects and Reasons, and in a given case, even the attendant circumstances. After the legislative policy is found, then the words used in the statute must be so interpreted such that it advances the purpose of the statute and does not defeat it.

136. Francis Bennion in his treatise Statutory Interpretation, at p. 810 described purposive construction in an equally eloquent manner as under :

“A purposive construction of an enactment is o