Murlidhar vs Mahboob Khan

One Mahboob Khan was tried by a Magistrate of the Second Class on a charge u/s 279 of the Indian Penal Code, the offence alleged against him being that he rode a bicycle in a manner so rash or negligent as to endanger human life. It appears from the evidence that he actually did collide with and injure a little boy; and the peculiar negligence of his conduct at the time lay in the fact that he was riding a bicycle which had no effective brake. The Magistrate who tried the case, after finding the accused guilty, has recorded his reasons for dealing with him under the provisions of Section 562(1-A) of the Gr. P.C. He released the accused after due admonition. The matter was brought to the notice of the District Magistrate by a petition presented by the father of the little boy who had been injured. The District Magistrate has referred the matter to the High Court on two distinct grounds. The first is that the Trying Magistrate being a Magistrate of the Second Class, had no jurisdiction to pass the order of release after due admonition under the section above referred to. The second is that the discretion exercised by the Trial Court was in any case injudicious, and that a sentence at least of fine ought in the interests of justice, to have been imposed.

On the question of law we are of opinion, after examining the whole of Section 562 of the Cr. P.C., that the proviso to Sub-section (1) of Section 562 of the Code must be read as a part of the said sub-section. It is superseded, as regards the effect of Sub-section (1-A) by the words ''the Court before whom he is so convicted'' in the aforesaid sub-section and cannot be used so as to control those words. We find, therefore, that the Magistrate of the Second Class in the present case had jurisdiction to pass the order which he did.

We have also looked at the matter from the other point of view suggested by the District Magistrate. There is something to be said undoubtedly for the District Magistrate''s opinion : but we are not satisfied that the order passed by the Trial Court was so clearly mistaken or injudicious, or amounted to such failure of justice, as to call for our interference in revision. Let the record be returned.