Judgment : 1. The petitioner has sought for a direction to set aside the order dated 27.04.2006 passed by the XVIII Metropolitan Magistrate, Saidapet, Chennai, in the unnumbered Complaint and direct the Court to take cognizance of the Complaint. 2. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the Complaint is filed under Section 200, Criminal Procedure Code for the alleged offences under Sections 120-B r/w 420, 467, 468 and 420, Indian Penal Code and the jurisdictional police is Royapettah Police Station, which falls within the territorial jurisdiction of XVIII Metropolitan Magistrate and hence the petitioner filed the Complaint before it and the Court has returned the same on the ground that the amount involved is Rs.40 lakhs and it has no pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain the Complaint. The learned Counsel further submits that there is no pecuniary jurisdiction contemplated under Criminal Procedure Code and the learned Magistrate has no power to return the Complaint on the ground of pecuniary jurisdiction. He relies on a decision of a Division Bench of this Court in A. Vinayagam v. Dr. Subash Chandran, 2000 (1) CTC 225 : 2000 (1) LW (Crl.) 460. 3. Theimpugned order of the learned Magistrate reads thus: “Complainant present. Heard and perused the entire documents. This Court finds that amount involved in the Complaint is Rs.40 lakhs. Hence this Court has no pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain the complaint for more than 5 lakhs. Hence this Complaint is returned to the complainant for filing before the pecuniary jurisdiction Court. Hence returned”. 4. No pecuniary jurisdiction is prescribed for the Magistrate Court and hence the impugned order is liable to be set aside. The observation of the Division Bench in the decision referred to above is relevant and it is extracted below: “Law does not know or provide any other mode of dealing with the Complaint, much less returning the complaint. It is not possible for a Magistrate to return the Complaint for the so called defects and if the defects are there in the Complaint, the complainant has to suffer. There is no warrant in the Criminal Procedure Code or the Criminal Rules of Practice empowering the Magistrate to return the complaint just because he thinks that there are any defects. There is no warrant in the Criminal Procedure Code or the Criminal Rules of Practice empowering the Magistrate to return the complaint just because he thinks that there are any defects. In this behalf, the observation by both the learned Judges that the Magistrate has a power to return the Complaint because he has a power to accept is clearly incorrect. In the first place, the Magistrate does not have a “power” to accept the Complaint. That is not the power of the Court. That is the “duty” on the part of the Court in contradistinction to its “powers”. Again, unless there is a specific provision in the Code or the Rules, the Magistrate cannot find out his own procedure by returning the Complaint as it is. In fact, when the complainant presents the case to the Magistrate that is not the stage of examining the defects and it is not the Magistrate to examine the so called defects in the Complaint. All that the Magistrate has to do is to consider the same by ordering the examination of complainant and/or as the case may be, his witnesses.” 5. In view of the above, this Petition is allowed and the impugned order is set aside. It is open to the petitioner to represent the Complaint within a period of two weeks from today and on its being so represented, the learned Magistrate is directed to proceed in accordance with law.