Mussumat Jamoti v. Gadalo Kamar Opposite Party.

This case was submitted to the High Court, as a Court of Revision, by the Sessions Judge of the Assam Valley Districts for the reversal of an order under Section 536, Code of Criminal Procedure, passed by the Deputy Commissioner (Magistrate) of Goalpara, directing Gadalo Kamar to pay one rupee per month for the maintenance of a child born to him by the petitioner Mussumat Jamoti.

The facts of this case appear from the order of the Sessions lodge in submitting it to the High Court:—

Muussumat Jamoti sued one Gadalo for maintenance of herself ind child under Section 536 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This case was originally instituted in the Court of the Extra Assistant Commissioner of Goalpara, an officer with the powers of a Magistrate of the 1st class. The records of this case are also herewith sent.

Gadalo's defence was that Jamoti was not his wife, and that he was not the father of the child.

The Extra Assistant Commissioner, after going fully into the case, dismissed Jamoti's petition on the 15th May last.

On the 8th June Jamoti put in a petition before the Deputy Commissioner, asking him to decide her claim for maintenance. She referred the Deputy Commissioner to the previous proceedings before the Extra Assistant Commissioner, and requested him to send for the records of that case and decide upon her claim. This petition to the Deputy Commissioner was, in fact, an appeal against the Extra Assistant Commissioner's order dismissing the petitioner's claim.

The Deputy Commissioner thereupon took up the case, heard the petitioner's witnesses, and gave her an order for maintenance of her child, being of opinion that the Extra Assistant Commissioner had overlooked the questionn as to whether the defendant was the father of the child, and had decided only the question whether she was the wife of defendant.

The following judgment of the High Court1 was delivered by Jackson, J.:—

We entirely concur with the Judge.

It is clear that the Extra Assistant Commissioner, who first heard the woman's complaint, went fully into the question of the paternity of the child, indeed, that was the principal question to which he addressed himself.

Even if this had not been so, the complainant's remedy would have been application to a superior Court.

The Deputy Commissioner had no jurisdiction to entertain the complaint de novo, and his order is quashed.