Order.-This is a Criminal Miscellaneous Petition filed under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to quash or set aside the order in C. R. P. No. 10 of 1976 passed by the Court of Sessions, West Godavari District, Eluru. The question is whether this Court has the power to quash or set aside that order. 2. I will now state the material facts In C.C. No. 218 of 1975 on the file of the Second Additional Judicial I Class Magistrate, Kovvur, the present petitioner was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 100 in default to suffer R.I. for a period of four months on a conviction under section 279 of the Indian Penal Code for driving a bus rashly and negligently as to endanger human life. The convicted petitioner filed C. R. P. No. 10 of 1976 in the Court of Session, West Godawari, Eluru. The learned Additional Sessions Judge who disposed of the Criminal Revision Petition observed that the revision petition was filed on 11th March, 1976 and was numbered on 23rd March, 1976. The records were received by 21st April, 1976. From that time onwards the petitioner was not ready on any occasion. The records disclosed that the matter was made over to the Additional Court on 25th September, 1976. Even before the Additional Court, the petitioner’s counsel was absent. Consequently the Court was constrained to peruse the records and hear the arguments of the Additional Public Prosecutor and pass an order on merits. Then the learned Additional Sessions Judge proceeded to consider the evidence on record and came to the conclusion that the petitioner was guilty and so upheld the conviction and sentence. The present petition is filed to quash and set aside this order. 3. It is argued by Sri C.V.N. Sastry, the learned Counsel for the petitioner, that the learned Additional Sessions Judge disposed of the case, Criminal Revision Petition, on merits without hearing the counsel for the petitioner,thereby depriving the petitioner an opportunity to argue and explain his case to the Court. This caused great prejudice to the petitioner and so the order is liable to be set aside. He further contends that under section 482, Criminal Procedure Code. I have ample power to set aside that order. 4.
This caused great prejudice to the petitioner and so the order is liable to be set aside. He further contends that under section 482, Criminal Procedure Code. I have ample power to set aside that order. 4. The question is whether the High Court has power to quash and set aside an order passed by the lower Court in a Criminal Revision Petition preferred by the same petitioner. The new Criminal Procedure Code contains a provision in sub-section (3) of section 397 which says: “If an application under this section has been made by any person either to the High Court or to the Sessions Judge, no further application by the same person shall be entertained by the other of them.” A plain reading of this provision would show that since an application has already been made to the Sessions Judge, West Godavari District, by the same petitioner, he is precluded from making a similar application to this Court. Therefore no further revision lies to this Court since the petitioner has exhausted his remedy by filing a revision petition before the Sessions Court. 5. Sri C.V.N. Sastry, however says that this is not a revision petition. It is only a miscellaneous petition filed under section 482, Criminal Procedure Code, to quash and set aside the order of the Sessions Judge, because it was passed without hearing the learned Counsel for the petitioner. By whatever name the present petition is called, the inescapable factor remains that it is to quash and set aside the order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, West Godavari, in Crl. R.P.No. 10 of 1976 filed by the same petitioner. The name or the nomenclature given to the petition filed in this Court is immaterial. The substance of the petition really matters and that is to call for the records and set aside the order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge made in Crl.R.P. No. 10 of 1976 preferred by the same petitioner. So the present petition clearly comes within the prohibition contained in section 397(3), Criminal Procedure Code. 6. It is well known and well established, for instance vide Sankara Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh1, that inherent powers cannot be exercised to do what the Code specifically prohibits the Courts from doing.
So the present petition clearly comes within the prohibition contained in section 397(3), Criminal Procedure Code. 6. It is well known and well established, for instance vide Sankara Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh1, that inherent powers cannot be exercised to do what the Code specifically prohibits the Courts from doing. Section 397(3) clearly lays down that no further application by the same person shall be entertained by the other Court if the remedy in one Court has already been exercised. Inherent power postulated under section 482, Criminal Procedure Code, is intended to cover only those cases and those situations which are not provided for by the Code. If that section is construed as applying to situations like this, it would result in trenching upon the clear provisions of the Code itself. It could never be the intention of the Parliament to defeat the provisions contained in the Code by incorporating a general provision under which inherent powers are conferred on the High Court. Inherent powers are not intended to defeat and set at naught the clear provisions of the Code. Therefore it must be held that the present Criminal Miscellaneous Petition, though it is called a Criminal Miscellaneous Petition and not a revision petition, cannot be entertained. 7. The arguments on merits need not be gone into in view of the opinion I have expressed that this Miscellaneous Petition cannot be entertained. 8. In the result, the petition is rejected. Crl.M.P. No. 1105 of 1977 is also dismissed.