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TMI Blog1965 (2) TMI 43X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tements regularly until he committed default in respect of a statement relating to the period May 2, 1963, to November 1, 1963, which was due to be filed with the Registrar on or before January 1, 1964. After issuing notice to him to rectify the omission, the Registrar instituted criminal prosecution against him before the First Class Magistrate, Civil Station, Bangalore. The petitioner admitted his default and pleaded guilty, but placed certain circumstances before the Magistrate on the strength of which he prayed that he be pardoned. It also appears that the necessary statement was filed by him after the presentation of the complaint but before the Magistrate came to dispose of the same. The Magistrate on the basis of the plea convict ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ears to me to be unsustainable. It is no doubt true that the offence in respect of which the petitioner has been convicted is an offence created by the Companies Act and that the penalty therefore is also prescribed by the same Act. But the trial of the offences defined and punished by the Companies Act is not assigned to any special courts created by the Companies Act but to the ordinary criminal courts exercising jurisdiction under the Code of Criminal Procedure subject to the provision contained in section 622 of the Act which read : "No court inferior to that of a Presidency Magistrate or a Magistrate of the First Class shall try any offence against this Act." I am unable to accept the argument that the said section 622 constitute ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... conduct of the prosecution would necessarily have been within the competence of an appropriate public prosecutor appointed under the Code of Criminal Procedure by the State Government. The ruling of this court in State v. G.L. Udayawar [1963] 14 STC 628 is of no assistance to the respondent. That case dealt with not the ordinary criminal jurisdiction of a Magistrate to punish an offence created under the Sales Tax Act but with his special statutory function of assisting in the collection of arrears of sales tax. The effect of the decision is that in respect of the latter function the Magistrate was not acting as a criminal court but as a special statutory authority acting administratively and not therefore subject to judicial control by ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d to make use of the clerk, Tunga, in his argument. His only argument is that the company in liquidation was one with small assets, that except in regard to the default which is the subject of this prosecution he had never been in default and that the interest of either the company in liquidation or its creditors has not suffered to any extent and does not require the special protection afforded by the statute by way of prosecuting a negligent liquidator. These circumstances are not controverted before me by or on behalf of the Registrar of Companies who was the complainant. At the same time the previous good conduct of the petitioner does not in itself furnish sufficient basis for an inference that in regard to the matter which is the su ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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