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Criminal Appeal No. 11‑D of 1969

Criminal Appeals Nos. 3‑D and 11‑D of 1969, decided on 7th January 1970.

(On appeal from the judgments and orders of the High Court of East Pakistan, Dacca, dated the 27th March 1968, in Criminal Revision Nos. 209 and 454 of 1967, respectively).

S. 18‑--Scope ---Concurrent jurisdiction of criminal Courts, under S. 18, to try cognizable case‑--Arises only in case where there has been police investigation and such investigation had been by police officer competent to investigate either on basis of F. I. R. lodged at police station or under direction of a Magistrate‑--Trial and convic tion by Magistrate in absence of such circumstances‑---Illegal.

Section 18 of the Conciliation Courts Ordinance, 1961, clearly contemplates an investigation by a competent Police Officer into a cognizable offence and only where after such investigation a case is submitted to the criminal Court by the police the criminal Court may, if it thinks fit, direct that the case be referred to conciliation under the Ordinance or try it itself. Now to enable the police to investigate a cognizable case it is necessary that an information must be lodged at a Police Station under section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code and it is only in such circumstances that the jurisdiction to investigate arises. Again under section 156, Cr. P. C. it is not every Police Officer who has the jurisdiction to investigate but only a Police Officer in charge of a Police Station and on the receipt of information referred to in section 154, Cr. P. C. or under orders of a Magistrate under subsection (3) of section 156. Any other Police Officer can investigate only if he is deputed to do so by the Officer‑in‑Charge of a Police Station. Any Police Officer may arrest a person who commits a cognizable offence in his presence but it is not every Police Officer who can investigate. If a Police Officer has arrested a person in such circumstances he must without any undue delay produce him before a Magistrate or before the officer‑in‑charge of a Police Station. (Vide sections 54 and 60, Cr. P. C.). Upon a plain reading of section 18 of the Conciliation Courts Ordinance, it appears that the concurrent jurisdiction arises only in a case where there has in fact been an investigation by the police and investigation, as already indicated, must be by a Police officer who is competent to investigate either on the basis of a First Information Report lodged at a Police Station or under the direction of a Magistrate.

Where, therefore, all that happened was that a police officer who was not attached to any police station but was a trainee at a Detective Training School arrested a student who obstructed him and took him to the police station, filed a written complaint before a Magistrate present there and the Magistrate thereupon examined the student immediately under section 242, Cr. P. C., and since the student pleaded guilty, he convicted him forthwith, it was held that the trial and conviction in the circumstances were illegal.

Jamshed Ali and another v. The State Criminal Revision Case No. 209 of 1967 ref.

Criminal Appeal No. 3‑D of 1969

K. M. Sobhan, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by Muhammad Nurul Had, Senior Attorney for Appellant.

A. Aziz, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by S. S. Hoda Advocate‑on‑Record for the State.

Criminal Appeal No. 11‑D of 1969

B. N. Chaudhry, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by Abdur Rab‑II, Advocate‑on‑Record for Appellant

A. Aziz, Advocate Supreme Court instructed by S. S. Hoda, Advocate‑on‑Record for the State.

Date of hearing: 15^th December 1969.

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