JUDGMENT Boys, J. - The facts of this case are set out in my order of the 23rd of May 1924. On the 23rd of February, 1924 the trial Magistrate acquitted the present applicants of a charge u/s 427 of the Indian Penal Code on the case being compounded between them and Amar Singh the complainant. So far there cannot be really any serious doubt that the Magistrate was acting perfectly properly and within his jurisdiction. It was alleged however very shortly afterwards by Baghuber Saran, the master of the complainant and Amar Singh that though, as a matter of fact, Amar Singh bad filed the complaint under his (Raghuber Saran's) authority, be bad no authority to compound the complaint without his (Raghuber Saran's) sanction which had not been given. However the situation may lie between Raghuber Saran, the master and Amat Singh the employee I feel do hesitation in saying that if Raghuber Saran sent Amar Singh to Court to represent him in filing the complaint the Court was perfectly notified in accepting Amar Singh's statement that he desired to compound the offence with the assumption that he was authorised by his master to compound it and that under the circumstances it was not incumbent on the Court before allowing the ease to be compounded and acquitting the accused to make any enquiry into Amar Singh's authority, So far then there is plainly an acquittal of the accused of the offence u/s 427 and under ordinary circumstances they could not possibly be prosecuted at the instance of anybody else until that acquittal has been set aside. The proper method of setting aside an acquittal is to move the District Magistrate to move the Local Government to appeal u/s 417 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. If the Magistrate in the proper exercise of his discretion or even merely because he is really not interested in a private dispute or a private injury refuses to do so, the private party can move the High Court in revision. Ordinarily the High Court will not interfere in revision against an order of acquittal. But it has frequently done so in suitable cases. Here no attempt whatever has been made to get the acquittal set aside.
Ordinarily the High Court will not interfere in revision against an order of acquittal. But it has frequently done so in suitable cases. Here no attempt whatever has been made to get the acquittal set aside. The idea underlying the order of the trial Magistrate and apparently also underlying that of the District Magistrate and the argument that has been pressed here by Mr. Bajapai on behalf of the opposite party is that where an acquittal has been obtained by fraud the acquittal is without force and cannot be held to be an acquittal which u/s 403, Criminal Procedure Code bars further proceedings until set aside. This argument is based on the fact that after the accused were acquitted the master, Raghubir Saran, as I am informed, prosecuted his servant Amar Singh on a charge of cheating and secured his conviction on the ground that he had without any authority assented to the compounding of the case. It would have been interesting to consider whether the doctrine that the order of acquittal was obtained by fraud would have been applicable to render null and void an acquittal within the terms of section 403 of the Criminal Procedure Code without any further proceedings being taken to set aside the acquittal. But the point does not really arise in this case, for no fraud of any sort or description has been established as against the present applicants. They were no parties to the prosecution of Amar Singh and any finding arrived at by the Court in that proceeding can in no way be binding. I hold therefore that the order of acquittal passed in the original criminal proceedings was so far as the accused, the applicants here are concerned, a valid order of acquittal passed with jurisdiction and that until that order of acquittal has been set aside in one of the ways I have indicated, the accused cannot he further prosecuted for the offence of which they have once been acquitted. I therefore quash the proceedings now pending against the accused in the Court of Rai Saheb Dharam Singh, Magistrate second class, of Kanth and direct that no further proceedings for the prosecution of the applicants in regard to the same offence be taken in that or in any other Court until the acquittal has been set aside by some competent Court.