K. J. VAIDYA, J. ( 1 ) ). "whether the cases wherein accused came to be prosecuted for the alleged breaches of the relevant rules made under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, read with Sec. 22 of the said Act, in the first instance, can be placed before the Lok Adalat for compromise and settlement, and in the second instance, in case if so placed, whether on accused pleading guilty before the Lok Adalat, on the recommendation of its Chairman, Settlement Board, he can be softly tackled, tampered and let-off by the learned Magistrate merely admonishing them without imposing any penalty whatsoever ? " This in short and substance is the question that arises for consideration in the back-drop and context of the facts and circumstances enumerated as under :- ( 2 ) ). To state few relevant facts briefly as far as they are necessary this group of 24 appeals for the enhancement of sentence by the State of Gujarat is directed against the impugned judgment and order dated 31st October, 1993, rendered in as many criminal cases passed by Mr. R. J. Raval, the learned JMFC, Botad, wherein two respondents, viz. , T. P. Steel and Rolling Mills, Botad and one another who came to be tried for the alleged breaches of relevant Rules under the Minimum wages Act, 1948 read with Sec. 22 of the said Act (as stated in detail in each of 24 complaints) were ultimately released on admonition. It further appears that on the respondents making a request to the learned Magistrate to place all these cases before the Lok Adalat, they were accordingly so placed. Thereafter on the respondents voluntarily pleading guilty and expressing repentance before the Lok adalat, the Chairman of the Settlement Board and its Members on recommending to show mercy to the accused on the ground that the alleged offences were first, the learned Magistrate accepting the same, released the respondents on admonition impressing upon them not to repeat the offences in question in future, (without imposing any penalty whatsoever) giving rise to all these appeals. ( 3 ) ). ( 3 ) ). Now there indeed cannot be any dispute about the accomplished fact that "lok Adalat Movement" is indeed a healthy movement for any country to take pride thereof, which has not only on one hand to some extent solved the problem of severe backlog of cases pending before various Courts of the country (latest figure about 2 crores of cases all over India, as reported. .) but on the other hand the said cases have also been disposed off in a sporting spirit, manner and atmosphere were neither parties are reported to be having complexes and feelings of either victors or vanquished as they happily part in true spirit of "give and take" and "forgive and forget" and on the basis of mutual understanding and acceptance of "give respect and command respect" for each other and some incidental compensation worked out during the course of compromise negotiation. Thus, this is a culture which so far has in the first instance and first flush has proved its efficacy, benevolence and thereby its priceless worth to all concern, namely; (i) the disputing parties and Court in general, and in second instance by putting an end to all sort of disputes and bickerings, wastage of public time, public money and overall inconvenience of all the concerned and public. Hope this culture works and augurs well for the time to come in the overall interest of "administration of Justice" and Society, keeping itself exceptionally immuned from ignoble human mechanism and manoeuvering by some vested interest which is always keen to schemingly screen themselves like snakes in the grass destroying the very culture. This is indeed a basic culture of any truly civilized society to the extent it is so civilized and therefore, greater the momentum it gains, greatest still it would have the impact on the interest of the society and overall administration of justice reeling at present under the acute pressure of back-log of old pending cases all throughout the country. This is indeed a basic culture of any truly civilized society to the extent it is so civilized and therefore, greater the momentum it gains, greatest still it would have the impact on the interest of the society and overall administration of justice reeling at present under the acute pressure of back-log of old pending cases all throughout the country. Now despite all this glory said, sung and done to the lofty ideal and realisation of handsome fruits of the said movement there is still one limitation so to say an exception and indeed quite reasonable and desirable and welcome one to the said movement and accordingly the question that arises for consideration is, can serious criminal cases which in the first instance are not compoundable in the second instance, though compoundable, still however, one of the side is not ready and willing to go before the Lok Adalat for compromise and settled their disputes, and further still, in the third instance, any criminal cases under the Labour Legislation affecting the interest of the workers can be placed before the Lok Adalat for compromise and settlement ?? The obvious answer without any hesitation to all these questions is definite "no". In fact, criminal cases of the category of (i) maintenance proceedings under Sec. 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, (ii) offences which are otherwise compoundable and not against the public interest, and (iii) proceedings under Secs. 107 and 110 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, known as Chapter proceedings and (iv) some such other cases are the only exceptions which can certainly be placed before Lok Adalat for appropriate orders, when the parties are ready and willing to go for compromise and arrive at some tangible settlement. This is permissible because such type of cases before the Court is essentially a dispute between the private, inter se and accordingly if parties agree to compromise and settle, well and good as there is indeed nothing wrong in it, rather such compromises and settlements are required to be applauded to be encouraged as it will not only bury the past illwill between the concerned parties but in a way, it will also be quite conducive to open up new happy chapter of the overall peace and tranquillity of the concerned families helping them out to restore cordial relations. However, it is simply unthinkable as to how the criminal cases under the Social/labour Welfare Legislation like the one under the Minimum Wages Act and the Rules made thereunder, etc. can, ever be placed before Lok Adalat for composition and settlement. In fact, this simply cannot be done and yet the fact remains that the learned Magistrate quite surprizingly not only placed the group of the present 24 cases before the Lok Adalat for compromise and settlement but acting at the behest and recommendation of the chairman, Settlement Board, released the accused on mere admonition without imposing any punishment whatsoever. In this regard, one Mr. Kishor Bhikhabhai patel, Labour Officer, Bhavnagar has filed an affidavit alleging therein that when the learned Magistrate proposed to place all these matters before the Lok Adalat, he had objected to the same on the ground that these were not the type of criminal cases which can be so placed before Lok Adalat. However, despite the said objection, all these 24 cases were unilaterally placed before Lok Adalat by the learned Magistrate and ultimately at the request [dictate. ] of the Chairman of the Settlement Board, lok Adalat, the accused were released on admonition. It further appears that when these matters were placed before Lok Adalat, the complainant was not present and that he came to know about disposal of these cases admonishing the accused subsequently and therefore, after obtaining necessary copies of the impugned judgment and order has challenged the same before this Court. Now ordinarily, this affidavit of the Labour Officer in the normal course would have been surely sent to the concerned learned Magistrate for his remarks as to whether in fact he had proposed to placed the present group of 24 criminal cases before Lok Adalat, and further still, whether as complained, the Labour Officer had also objected to the same, but the same is not proposed to be done simply on the ground that even if either the Labour Officer or the learned Magistrate had agreed to place these matters before the Lok Adalat or as alleged, the complainant had objected to the same, it makes no difference as the learned Magistrate had indeed no jurisdiction whatsoever to place this type of cases before the Lok Adalat. The reason is that if such cases under the Social/labour Welfare Legislation are to be placed before the Lok Adalat for compromise and settlement that indeed would be an evil day, for the simple reason that hundreds and thousands of such criminal cases filed day in and day out every year before the criminal Courts would be placed before Lok Adalat to set them at naught by stroke of pen on the ground of accused pleading guilty, and thereafter merely admonishing them. And please believe that if such cases are so short-circuited in the manner it has been as done in the present group of cases, the whole object underlying the Labour Welfare Legislation would be thrown to winds sabotaging altogether the concerned beneficial legislation. As a matter of fact, the complainant in all such cases is a statutory functionary and in that capacity only, he files a complaint, acting as a trustee and guardian of the workers interest. The real aggrieved party is the worker, the real beneficiary under the particular Labour provision. In this view of the matter also the Labour Officer, a statutory functionary has no authority whatsoever to compromise with regard to the interest of the workers, on behalf of workers without they being in the picture at all, before the Lok Adalat. When the parties agree to compromise and settle the matter, the matter can be placed before the Lok Adalat for disposal, provided they fall within any of the categories already pointed out above. If in fact, the accused wanted to plead guilty then in that case, as provided in the Criminal Procedure Code, it is always open to him to so plead and it is further open to the learned Magistrate to accept or not to accept the said plea of guilty depending upon facts and circumstances of that particular case. For example, cases wherein the statutory minimum sentence is prescribed and or where the accused has to his credit and history any previous conviction and sentence/s then in that case these are not the cases which can ever be placed before the Lok Adalat for compromise and settlement. Moreover, in such cases, the learned magistrate is not expected to abdicate his judicial function by not discharging his duties according to law and act at the instance of the Chairman of the Settlement board during Lok Adalat proceedings surrendering judicial discretion. Moreover, in such cases, the learned magistrate is not expected to abdicate his judicial function by not discharging his duties according to law and act at the instance of the Chairman of the Settlement board during Lok Adalat proceedings surrendering judicial discretion. In fact, such Settlement Boards have no right to recommend even and thereby meddle with judicial proceeding of the case like the present one. Under the circumstances, it is required to be clarified that the criminal cases which are not compoundable and in case if they are compoundable in the case where the parties do not agree to go for compromise and settlement and further the cases which do not fall in the list of any of the category of the criminal cases to which reference is already made hereinabove can be placed before Lok Adalat. From the impugned judgment, it appears that accused requested the learned Magistrate to place all these matters before the Lok adalat and the learned Magistrate in his turn accepted the same. This is something unknown to law. In this view of the matter, since the impugned order passed by the learned Magistrate merely admonishing the accused at the behest and instance of the Chairman of the Settlement Board during the Lok Adalat proceedings are ex-facie illegal, the same deserve to be quashed and set aside. ( 4 ) ). Ordinarily, at the admission stage, if the appellant makes out a case then in that case before passing the final order, the Court while admitting the matter is required to issue notice to the respondent/s but that is so when the cases are decided on merits at the end of full dressed trial and not in the cases where matters are mechanically thrown away by the learned Magistrate under one pretext or the other. In fact, all these cases having not been decided on merits, but on some hunch of the learned Magistrate, the accused having earned no right whatsoever is not entitled to any hearing and accordingly, it is not necessary to issue notice to them. Not only that but in case even notices are issued to the respondent-accused, then even having regard to patently perverse and illegal order, remanding the case is the only and inevitable course and no amount of defending the case can ever salvage the situation in favour of the respondents to confirm impugned orders of admonition. Not only that but in case even notices are issued to the respondent-accused, then even having regard to patently perverse and illegal order, remanding the case is the only and inevitable course and no amount of defending the case can ever salvage the situation in favour of the respondents to confirm impugned orders of admonition. This is what the view which has been taken by this Court in the case of State of Gujarat v. Chandrakant C. Patel, in Criminal Appeal No. 252 of 1990 decided on 22-2-1993 (Coram : K. J. Vaidya, J. ). Further when in such type of cases even after hearing the other side remanding the case to the trial Court to decide the same on merits, being the only alternative left to the Court in the overall interest of justice, then to mechanically issue a notice or rule would simply mean only unnecessarily punishing the accused with costs for engaging the Advocate to defend his case where there is no case. This would be simply unfair, unjust and improper. The principle of natural justice is not rough and ready straight-jacket formula which can be mechanically stretched and put in practice divorcing it of common-sense and overall judical pragmatism. ( 5 ) ). In the result, these appeals are allowed. The impugned judgment and orders of acquittal passed by the trial Court are hereby quashed and set aside. The matters are remanded to the trial Court to be decided on merits according to law. The original complainant or his successor in the Department shall appear before the trial Court on or before 15th April, 1995 and take a fixed date of next hearing and see that the notices to the respondents are duly served by him personally, and in case of difficulty, with the assistance of the Police Department. .