Judgment :- 1. The petitioner herein has filed a complaint before the Judicial Magistrate of the First Class, Peerumed, alleging various offences against persons named as accused in the complaint. The incidents alleged in the complaint happened during night on 22-10-1986 at Thankamani Village in Idukki District. S.395 of the Indian Penal Code is the most serious among the offences of which the Magistrate took cognizance. Pursuant to the process issued, the respondents herein (who are shown as A2 and A7 respectively in the complaint) appeared before the Magistrate. They were allowed to be released on bail despite opposition from the complainant. Hence the complainant has now filed this petition for cancellation of the bail granted to the respondents. 2. The contentions of the petitioner are mainly two. The first is that the Magistrate has no jurisdiction to grant bail in cases involving offences punishable with imprisonment for life. The second contention is that the Magistrate, even if he has jurisdiction, has acted erroneously in exercising his discretion. Counsel made a plea for reconsideration of the ratio in Satyan v. State of Kerala (1981 KLT 606). 3. The offence under S.395 of the IPC is punishable with imprisonment for life or with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years. S.437(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short 'the Code') imposes a restriction on Magistrates in the matter of granting bail to persons accused of certain offences. If there appear reasonable grounds for believing that a person has been guilty of "an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life" such person shall not be released on bail unless he is under the age of 16 years or is a woman or sick or infirm. The words "offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life" are not understood as confining to those offences each of which is punishable with death or imprisonment for life. Eg:- S.121, 132, 194, 302, 305, 396 of the IPC are offences punishable with "death or imprisonment for life". A single judge of this Court in Satyan v. State of Kerala (1981 KLT 606) while dealing with the question of powers of a Magistrate in granting bail, made reference to the decisions in Mohammed Eussof v. King (AIR 1926 Rangoon 51) and Tularam v. King (AIR 1927 Nagpur 53). A single judge of this Court in Satyan v. State of Kerala (1981 KLT 606) while dealing with the question of powers of a Magistrate in granting bail, made reference to the decisions in Mohammed Eussof v. King (AIR 1926 Rangoon 51) and Tularam v. King (AIR 1927 Nagpur 53). Those decisions favoured the view that the expression "offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life" does not refer to an offence punishable only with imprisonment for life. But Janaki Amma, J. in Satyan v. State neither approved nor disapproved the aforesaid view, as the learned judge decided the said case on other grounds. Therefore it cannot be said that the learned single judge gave approval for the view that Magistrates have no jurisdiction to grant bail when the offence alleged is punishable with imprisonment for life. 4. Two opposite views prevailed on this question. One view is that the words "death or imprisonment for life" shall be interpreted conjunctively whereas the other view is that they must be understood disjunctively. The learned Judge (Doyle, J) who adopted the former view in Mohammed Eussof's case subsequently doubted the correctness of his own decision. About a year later a Full Bench of the same High Court in King Emperor v. Nga son Htwa and others (AIR 1927 Rangoon 205) consisting of Doyle, J. also overruled the dictum in Mohammed Eussof's case. Following the aforesaid decision of the Full Bench, the Nagpur High Court also changed its stand subsequently in Emperor v. Mt. Janki and another (AIR 1932 Nagpur 130). Now the weight of authorities is in favour of the view that the words in S.437(1) shall be interpreted disjunctively (Naranji Premji v. Emperor, AIR 1928 Bombay 244, Rao Harnarain Singh v. State, AIR 1958 Punjab 123; State v. Vijay Kumar, 1979 Crl. LJ 1179; Giant Meher Singh v. Emperor, AIR 1939 Calcutta 714). A similar expression "offence not punishable with death or imprisonment for life" is used in S.4 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958. The Supreme Court considered its application in offences punishable with imprisonment for life only. In Parichhat v. State of Madhya Pradesh (AIR 1972 SC 535) and in Som Nath Purl v. State of Rajasthan (AIR 1972 SC 1490) the Supreme Court held that S.4 of the said Act is not applicable in cases where offences punishable with imprisonment for life alone are involved. In Parichhat v. State of Madhya Pradesh (AIR 1972 SC 535) and in Som Nath Purl v. State of Rajasthan (AIR 1972 SC 1490) the Supreme Court held that S.4 of the said Act is not applicable in cases where offences punishable with imprisonment for life alone are involved. In otherwords, the Supreme Court treated the aforesaid expression disjunctively. The preponderant view is that the expression "offences punishable with death or imprisonment for life" must be understood disjunctively. I have no reason to dissent from that view. 5. If it is said that the Magistrate has no jurisdiction to grant bail in a case involving offences punishable with imprisonment for life, the discretion conferred on a Magistrate by S.437 of the Code will stand unnecessarily restricted. Such restriction may lead to a practical consequence that in all cases (whether instituted on complaint or police report) in which offences punishable with imprisonment for life but triable by a Magistrate of the First Class are involved the Magistrate cannot exercise jurisdiction in favour of granting bail. Eg:- S.326, 377,388,394, 409, 467, 472,474, 475, and 477 are offences punishable with imprisonment for life, but all such offences are triable by Magistrate of the First Class. Usually or atleast in most of such cases Magistrates exercise discretion in favour of granting bail. Of course, where offences punishable with imprisonment for life and triable exclusively by Court of Sessions are involved Magistrates refrain from granting bail to accused persons in such cases. The restriction imposed on a Magistrate by the legislature is that when "there appear reasonable grounds for believing that he has been guilty of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life" such person shall not be released on bail by that Magistrate. 6. At what stage can a Magistrate find that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused has been guilty of such offences? "Appear reasonable ground for believing" is a situation which is far below the stage when you can say that the prosecution has proved the offence beyond reasonable doubt. The stage when a Magistrate is able to form the opinion that there is sufficient ground to proceed as contemplated in S.204 of the Code is certainly much earlier than the stage when reasonable grounds appear to him to believe that the person has been guilty of such offence. The stage when a Magistrate is able to form the opinion that there is sufficient ground to proceed as contemplated in S.204 of the Code is certainly much earlier than the stage when reasonable grounds appear to him to believe that the person has been guilty of such offence. More materials are necessary at the latter stage, than what may be necessary for forming the opinion that there is ground for proceeding. In private complaints involving offences exclusively triable by Court of Sessions, even if a Magistrate decides to proceed on the basis of the sworn statements of the complainant and the witnesses, it cannot be said that those statements would afford reasonable grounds to him for believing that the accused has been guilty of such offences. This is, perhaps, one of the main reasons why the Magistrates, in almost all cases instituted on private complaints, grant bail to the accused on appearance. In other cases, where investigation is made by recognised investigating agencies, sufficient materials can be garnered by such investigating agencies. Those materials as well as statements recorded under S.161 of the Code would be available in such cases so that the Magistrate can decide whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused concerned has been guilty of the offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life. This is the difference which accounts for the two different approaches usually made by Magistrates as between cases instituted on complaints and cases instituted otherwise. 7. Even in cases where the court finds that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the accused has been guilty of such offence, whether instituted on police report or otherwise, the court is free to exercise its judicial discretion in granting or refusing to grant bail, depending upon many other relevant factors. Supreme Court in Gurcharan Singh v. State ((1978) 1 SCC 118) has pointed that there can be other factors of overriding considerations in granting bail which are common in the case of S.437(1) and 439(1) of the Code. Supreme Court in Gurcharan Singh v. State ((1978) 1 SCC 118) has pointed that there can be other factors of overriding considerations in granting bail which are common in the case of S.437(1) and 439(1) of the Code. "The nature and gravity of the circumstances in which the offence is committed; the position and status of the accused with reference to the victim and the witnesses; the likelihood of the accused fleeing from justice; of repeating the offence; of jeopardising his own life being faced with a grim prospect of possible conviction in the case; of tampering with witnesses; the history of the case as well as of its investigation and other relevant grounds which, in view of so many variable factors, cannot be exhaustively set out of these, on the two paramount considerations, viz., likelihood of the accused fleeing from justice and his tampering with prosecution evidence relate to ensuring a fair trial of the case in a Court of justice, due and proper weight should be bestowed". In this case, the Magistrate has not committed any jurisdictional error in granting bail to the accused, nor has he gone wrong in exercising his discretion in favour of granting bail to the respondents. The petitioner has not made out any case for cancellation of the bail. Petition is hence dismissed.