Hardayal Hardy, J. ( 1 ) THIS Criminal Reference made by Shri O. N. Vohra, Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi arises out of an application under Sections 435 and 438 Criminal Procedure Code filed by the petitioner Shri K. D. Kohli against the order dated 11/9/1967 made by Shri N. C. Jain, Sub Divisional Magistrate, Delhi whereby the preliminary objection raised on behalf of the petitioner to the maintainability of the proceedings under section 145 Criminal Procedure Code. was dismissed. The learned Additional Sessions Judge has recommended that the proceedings pending before the learned Magistrate under Section 145 Cr. P. C. be quashed. ( 2 ) THE facts as reported by the learned Judge are that on 22/12/1965 Shri K. K. Sondhi Manager, Gwalior Potteries filed a complaint in the Court of Shri N. L. Kakkar, Sub Divisional Magistrate, Parliament Street, New Delhi alleging that the Gwalior Potteries of which he was the Manager, had godowns and stores in the same premises in which the premises of Messrs. Printers house were located in the building known as Sciendia House, New Delhi, and that the door of his premises was at the back and opened at a place where a canteen was being run by the authorities of the Delhi Transport Undertaking and that on the ground floor there was a room measuring about 7 feet X 17 feet which was separated by a wooden partition from the premises of Messrs. Printers House. He alleged that there was a Do-chatti and one other big room to which access could be had from the Do-chatti and that a wooden staircase had been provided for going to the Do-chhatti and the connected room from the room on the ground floor. He also alleged that on 19/12/1965 he was. informed by one Shivraj, an employee of the Madhya Pradesh Emporium that Shri K. D. Kohli, Shri O. P. Mohan, Shri Braham Datt and Shri Rishi of the Printers House had illegally and forcibly taken possession of the premises comprising the ground floor room and Do-chhatti and that the door of the entrance had been bolted from inside. ( 3 ) ON this complaint the learned Magistrate who had by then succeeded Shri N. L. Kakkar passed a preliminary order under Section 145 (1) Criminal Procedure Code. on 1/10/1966. ( 3 ) ON this complaint the learned Magistrate who had by then succeeded Shri N. L. Kakkar passed a preliminary order under Section 145 (1) Criminal Procedure Code. on 1/10/1966. The petitioner raised a preliminary objection that the proceedings had become infructuous and that no relief could be given to the complainant in as much as the preliminary order had been passed after more than two months of the alleged dispossession of the opposite party. The learned Magistrate, however, opened that the preliminary order could not have been passed earlier because proceedings in the case had been stayed by the learned Sessions Judge, Delhi on 29/12/1965 and the stay order had remained in force till shortly before the date on which the preliminary order was passed by him. In support of his view the learned Magistrate relied upon a Division Bench judgement of the Madras High Court in Chunchu. Narayana and others v. Karrapati Kesappa ( 4 ) IT appears to me that there is merit in the recommendation made by the learned Additional Sessions Judge which must therefore, be accepted. The order made by the learned Magistrate is erroneous in law and is based on a decision which has been over-ruled by a Full Bench of the same High Court in Athiappa Gounder and others v. S. A. Athiappa Pandaram. ( 5 ) THE provisions of section 145 Criminal Procedure Code. if so far as they are relevant for the purpose of this case have come up for consideration in numerous cases ^including several full Benches of the High Courts in India and it is a matter of some regret that the learned Magistrate should not have been aware of those cases and should have based his order on an over-ruled decision of the Madras High Court. ( 6 ) SUB section (1) of Section 145 Criminal Procedure Code. ( 6 ) SUB section (1) of Section 145 Criminal Procedure Code. provides that whenever a Magistrate is satisfied from apolice report or other information that a dispute likely to cause a breach of the peace exists concerning any land or water or the boundaries thereof, within the local limits of his jurisdiction, he shall make an order in writing, staling the grounds of his being so satisfied, and requiring the parties concerned in such dispute to attend his Court in person or by pleader, within a time to be fixed by him and to put in written statements of their respective claims as respects the fact of actual possession of the subject of dispute and also to put in such documen three provisos. The proviso which is material for the purposes of this case is the second proviso which lays down that if it appears to the Magistrate that any party has within two months next before the date of such order been forcibly and wrongfully dispossessed, he may treat the party so dispossessed as if he had been in possession at such date. ( 9 ) SUB section (6) provides that if the gistrate decides that one of the parties was or should under the second proviso to sub-section (4) be treated as being in such possession of the said subject, he shall issue an order declaring such party to be entitled to possession thereof until evicted therefrom in due course of law, and forbidding all disturbances of such possession until such eviction and when he proceeds under the second proviso to sub-section (4) he may restore to possession the party forcibly and wrongfully dispossessed. ( 10 ) A plaint reading of the section makes it clear that an arbitrary period of two months has been fixed by the statute. But for the second proviso to subsection (4), the inquiry would be limited to ascertainment of the fact of possession on the date of the preliminary order envisaged in sub-section (1 ). The intention of the legislature is that apart from the person who was actually in possession on the date of the preliminary order the person who has been wrongfully dispossessed within twomonths from the date of the said order can also be restored to possession. ( 11 ) AS is well known the provisions of this section are primarily designed for maintenance and preservation of peace. ( 11 ) AS is well known the provisions of this section are primarily designed for maintenance and preservation of peace. The powers vested in the Magistrate under this section are meant to be utilised even to protect the possession of squatters. The section is coneerned not with right to possession but with actual physical possession of the property in dispute. It is therefore, of the essence of this section that the Magistrate in matters affecting breach of the peace must exercise his powers with diligence and promptitude in passing a preliminary order. Likewise the police have equally an important duty to submit their report when called for without delay or procrastination. ( 12 ) IN this view of the matter there is hardly any scope for invoking any considerations of equity of hardship. The Bench decision of govinda Menon and Basheer Ahmed Sayeed JJ. in Chunchu Narayan v. Karrapati Kesappa s case which has been relied upon by the learned Magistrate and which as stated above has been over-ruled, had applied the maximum actus curiae neminern gravabit (the act of the court shall prejudice no man) and the fiction of nunc pro tune (now for then ). The legislative intent as manifested by the clear and anambiguous language used in the section cannot be allowed to yield to any such considerations. ( 13 ) I, by the order of stay granted by the court of Sessions, the learned Magistrate was prevented from passing a preliminary order and the petitioner continued to remain in possession for a period of over 7 months after the date of the alleged forcible and illegal dispossession of the respondent, the hardship which the respondent is likely to suffer as a result of the act of the court cannot be remedied by the learned Magistrate assuming jurisdiction to pass such an order long after the expiry of the statutory period of two months fixed by the second proviso in sub-section (4) of section 145 Criminal Procedure Code. It is a cardinal rule of construction that when the language of the statute is clear, unambiguous and in express terms then all that is required is to ex- pound those words in their natural and ordinary sense, unless in doing so some absurdity or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the provisions of the statute would result, in which case it will be permissible to modify the construction for avoiding that absurdity, but there the power of the court to modify the express terms of the statue ends. ( 14 ) SINCE the final order which the Magistrate is empowered to pass under sub-section (6) is to declare as to which of the parties was in. possession or could be treated under the second proviso to sub-section (4) as being in possession of the property forming the subject matter of dispute and the condition precedent to his making that order is the passing of a preliminary order under sub-section (1) of section 145 Cr. P. C. (and in the instant case the respondent was neither in possession of the property on 11/9/1967 nor had he been dispossessed within two months before the date of that order, his allegations being that he had been dispossessed as far back as 22/12/1965, the learned Magistrate would have obviously no jurisdiction to make such an order. In the result the proceedings under section 145 Criminal Procedure Code. initiated by the respondent had become infructuous and the preliminary objection raised by the petitioner to the maintainability of those proceedings had thus become irresistible. ( 15 ) THE precise point which arises in this case was decided by a Full Bench of Allahabad High Court in Ganga Bux Singh v. Sukhndin wherein it was held : "where a dispossessed person seeks relief under the provisions of S. 145, Criminal Procedure Code. and the Magistrate passes a preliminary order under S. 145 (1), Criminal Procedure Code. more than two months after such dispossession but by his final order under S. 145 (6) he puts him in possession, the final order cannot be deemed to be a valid order on the ground that the court itself was responsible for this delay and so a party cannot be penalized for the fault committed by the Court. more than two months after such dispossession but by his final order under S. 145 (6) he puts him in possession, the final order cannot be deemed to be a valid order on the ground that the court itself was responsible for this delay and so a party cannot be penalized for the fault committed by the Court. In such a case the Magistrate is not justified in treating or empowered to treat the party who had been dispossessed more than two months before the actual date of his preliminary order under S. 145 (1), Code of Criminal Procedure as being in possession on the date of his order under proviso (1) to sub-s. (4) of S. 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. " ( 16 ) THE learned judges expressly dissented from the view of the Madras High Court in the case of Chhchu Narayana and others v. Karrapati Kesappa and held that the doctrines of "nunc pro tune" and "actus curiae neminern, gravabit" cannot be applied to an order passed by a Magistrate under section 145 (4) Criminal Procedure Code. ( 17 ) TO the same effect is a Division Bench decision of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh in Padmaraju Subba Raj and othersv. Padmaraju Koneti Raju and another which was later approved by a Full Bench of that Court in Kamapativenkatramiah v. Challapalli Sitharamiah It may be mentioned here that in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh the reference of the question to a Full Bench of that Court was necessitated by the conflict between the earlier decision of the Madras High Court in AIR 1951 Madras 500 and the latter Bench decision of Andhra Pradesh High Court in AIR 1955 Andhra 99. It had been held by a Full Bench of Andhra High Court in M. Subbarayudu and others v. The State that the decisions of the Madras High Court rendered prior to 5/7/1954 were binding on the High Court of Andhra and that in a case where a Division Bench of Andhra High Court was inclined to take a view different from that of the Division Bench of the Madras High Court of equal strength the case should be referred to a Full Bench. ( 18 ) THE view that I have taken is also in accord with the view taken by Om Parkash J. of this Court in Sohan Lal v. State (Cr. Rev. 354-C of 1966 decided on 12/9/1967 ). The case has not been reported so far but an extract from the judgment appears in 1967 Delhi High Court Notes (Part XIII case No. 200 ). Although this case was decided as far back as 12/9/1967, it has not been noticed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge in the reference made by him on 28/12/67. It appears that neither the learned Additional Sessions Judge himself nor the counsel appearing before him were aware of this decision. Learned judge has of course referred to a decision of Tek Chand J. of the Punjab High Court (AIR 1958 Punjab 47 ). But that judgment is relevant only to the extent that it expounds the meaning of the second proviso to sub-section (4) of section 145 Cr. P. C. ( 19 ) THERE are several other judgments of other High Courts in which the same view has been taken. It is however not necessary to refer to those as the meaning of the section appears to me to be too plain. ( 20 ) THE reference is, therefore, accepted and the proceedings under section 145 Criminal Procedure Code. pending in the court of the learned Magistrate are ordered to be quashed.