ORDER
Atma Charan, J.C.
1. This iS an application in revision by Jagan Nath and five others from the order of Mr. T. Ramabhadran, I.C. S., Sessions Judge, Ajmer-Merwara, Ajraer, partly setting aside the order of the trial Court discharging them in respect of offences punishable Under Section 82, Registration Act and under aSection 177, 183 and 420, Penal Code, and directing them to be tried afresh in accordance with law in respect of an offence punishable under Section 177, Penal Code. The facts that have given rise to the application for revision are briefly as below: The applicants executed a sale-deed in respect of a certain piece of land, and got it registered on 22nd September 1917. The land was described therein as having a ‘pacca boundary wall, trees and a garden being inside ‘abadi.’ The contention of the prosecution before the Court below was that the property sold, in fact, was ‘land’ within the meaning of Section 3 of Regulation lit [3] of 1914 and that, as such, the applicants by giving a wrong description thereof had committed an offence punishable under Section 177, Penal Code. The Court below held that the property was ‘land’ within the meaning of Section 3 of Regulation in [3] of 1941 and that the applicants were in duty bound to have given the correct description thereof under a 21, Registration Act, and directed that the applicants be tried afresh in accordance with law – in respect of an offence punishable Under Section 177, Penal Code.
2. Section 177, Penal Code, lays down two in-gradients firstly, that a person must be legally bound to furnish information on the particular subject to the public servant, and secondly, that he must furnish, as true, information on that subject which he knows or has reason to believe to be false. Section 31, Registration Act does not appear to lay down any such obligation on the executant of a document. What appears to have been stressed in this section is that the property should be described in sufficient details so as to make the identity thereof easier.
3. Even if it be taken for granted just for arguments’ sake that the executants were legally bound to furnish such information, then it has to be seen whether they knew or had reason to believe the information furnished to be false. The trial Court in its order writes to say that the land in dispute is an uneven sandy plot and was entered as ‘banjar’ in the Settlement of 1911 and as ‘bara-qadim’ in the present Settlement. Seotion 2 of Regulation in [3] of 1914 defines ‘land’ as land … which is occupied or let for agricultural purposes….It was not for the Court below in the proceedings before it to hold whether the property sold was ‘land’or not within the meaning of Section 3 of Regulation HI [3] of 1911. The question that should have been decided by it was whether the applicants could have described it in the way that they did in the sale deed executed by them. The official papers themselves described the property falsely as ‘banjar’ and then as ‘bara-qadim.’ The applicants, in the circumstances, might have given the description of the property sold in the sale-deed as it was given in the official papers with a view to making its identification easier. There in thus no reason to suppose that the applicants had given wrong description of the property sold dishonestly.
4. The Court below has further held that the trial Court should not have discharged the applicants unless it had heard all the evidence led and sought to be led on behalf of the prosecution. This is obviously wrong. The trial Court discharged the accused only after hearing all the evidence on behalf of the prosecution. The order-sheet of the trial Court, dated 16th June 1948, is quite clear on the point.
5. The application in revision accordingly is allowed, the order of the Court below directing a fresh trial of the applicant in accordance with law is set aside and the applicants are discharged.
