The Kalaburagi bench of the Karnataka High Court has said that notifying a party about the case pending against him is a must and the same is the bedrock of principles of natural justice.
Justice V Shrishananda said this while granting relief to Rajendra Singh, an advocate and his three brothers.
Kasturi Bai, a teacher from Kalaburagi, had filed a private complaint against the petitioner Rajendra Singh and three others for cheating, criminal trespass and other offences in connection with a land dispute. The complainant filed a protest petition before the magistrate challenging the B report in the case. The magistrate held that there was no satisfactory material to proceed against the petitioners to be summoned for further trial. On the revision petition filed, the District Judge passed an ex-parte order rejecting the B report.
The petitioners challenged this ex-parte order and his three brothers argued that the unilateral order, passed by the district judge, had resulted in a miscarriage of justice, as all settled positions of law had been flouted, including the doctrine of principles of natural justice.
Justice Shrishananda noted that the sessions court, which acted as a revisional court, could not have passed such an order without even notifying these petitioners.
“In the case on hand, if the revisional court had issued the notice to the petitioners and heard them before the revision could be decided on merits, the revisional court could have had the benefit of the explanation that would have been offered by the petitioners in respect of the revisional grounds and the revisional court could have passed a judicious order. Suffice to say that the district judge in the revision petition did not adopt the said procedure and thereby the order passed by the learned district judge which is impugned in the present petition has resulted in miscarriage of justice,” the court said. The high court has now directed the petitioners and the complainant to appear before the Additional District Judge on March 6.