SHAH ABDUL RASHID, J.-Although no specific issue has been referred to us, the question which this Full Bench is required to answer can be formulated thus:- "Whether the Courts of Magistrates, the Courts of Session and the High Court can exercise power of granting, refusing or cancelling bail and other ancillary powers under Chapter XXXIX of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Act V of 1898) in respect of the offences triable under the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Special Provisions) Regulation (I of 1975) as amended by Provincially Administered Tribal Areas Special Powers (Amendment) Regulation (IV of 1976)?"
2. Under Article 246 of the Constitution "Provincially Administered Tribal Areas" means the Districts of Chitral, Dir and Swat (which includes Kalam), the Tribal Area in Kohistan District, Malakand Protected Area, the Tribal Area adjoining Mansehra District and the former State of Amb in the North-West Frontier Province and some other parts forming part of the Province of Baluchistan. As laid down in clause (3) of Article 247 of the Constitution no Act of Parliament or Provincial Assembly is applic--able to the Provincially Administered Tribunal Areas unless the Governor of the Province concerned with the approval of the President so directs. The Code of Criminal. Procedure was not applicable to the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas of the North-West Frontier Province prior to 1st day of January 1971, when the Governor of the North-West Frontier Province by Tribal Areas (Application of Laws) Regulation (I of 1971) extended it to the Tribal Areas of Chitral, Dir, Kalam, Swat and Malakand Protected Area and then to the State of Amb by Tribal Areas (Application of Laws to Amb) Regulation (III of 1973) on the 14th of May 1973. The Courts in these areas were set up and functioning thereafter under the Code of Criminal Procedure but on 26-7-1975 Regulation I of 1975 was enforced by the Governor. This Regulation applied to the Provincially Administered Tribunal Areas of Chitral, Dir. Swat, Kalam and Malakand Protected Area and section 3 thereof read with Schedule to the Regulation provided for the trial of certain offences exclusively by the Tribunals to be set up under the said Regulation and of trial of some other offences by the same Tribunals if the accused persons agree to such trial. This Regulation was amended by Regulation IV of 1976 and the amended section 3 is as under:- "3. Trial of offence.-(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in an. Other Law for the time being in force, all offences punishable under the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), except those in Chapters VI, VII, IX, IX-A and XII thereof, shall be tried by a Jirga constituted under, and in accordance with the provisions of, this, Regulation.
(2) Except as otherwise provided in this Regulation, the provisions of the Evidence Act, 1872 (Act I of 1872), and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of 1898), shall not apply to any proceedings under this Regulation."
The effect of this and other amendments was that in place of Tribunal a jirga was to function and all offences under the Pakistan Penal Code except offences against the State, offences relating to Army, Navy and Air Force, offences by or relating to Public Servants offences relating to Election and offences relating to coins and Government Stamps fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Jirga constituted under the Regulation.
3. As provided for in subsection (2) of section 3, the Code of Criminal Procedure is not applicable to any proceedings under Regulation I of 1975 as amended later on. This bar undoubtedly applies to trial or enquiry before a Jirga but the question which requires determination is whether the bar also applies to the exercise of power of bail under Chapter XXXIX of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
4. The Assistant Advocate-General, while arguing the point at issue, submitted that subsection (2) of section 3, which takes the Code of Criminal Procedure outside the purview of the proceedings under the Regulation, leaves no room for doubt that the provisions contained in Chapter XXXIX also are not applicable in respect of the offences triable under Regula--tion I of 1975. Consequently, it was argued that neither the Magistrates nor the Sessions Judges nor the High Court can grant bail in respect of those offences if committed in the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas of Dir, Chitral, Kalam, Swat and Malakand Protected Area.
5. Arguments, on the other side, however, are that no provision of Regulation I of 1975 limits the jurisdiction of the superior Courts of granting bail or of exercising ancillary powers under Chapter XXXIX and that it is only in the course of trial of offences that the provisions of the said Code have been made inapplicable.
6. While interpreting subsection (2) of section 3 of the Regulation it was pointed out that the word "proceedings" occurring therein relates only to trial and that' as such it is only when the cognizance of a case is taken by the Deputy Commissioner and a jirga is constituted that the jurisdiction of the Courts of ordinary criminal jurisdiction is ousted in respect of bail matters. To support the arguments reference was made to clause (m) of section 4(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure in which the words' "judicial proceedings" have been defined and it was urged that the bail matter covered under Chapter XXXIX of the Code of Criminal Procedure are not "proceedings" because evidence is not required to be taken on oath in dealing with such matters. This argument, on the face of it, is without any substance; for the definition relates to judicial proceedings" and not to "proceedings" only. Even the definition of the words "judicial proceedings" is not exhaustive when we see that by the very definition something apart from the proceedings in which the evidence is recorded on oath is included in the definition. The word "includes" is significant to show that even the "judicial proceedings" cover "other proceedings as well where evidence on oath is not recorded.
7. The word "proceeding" has been defined broadly in Black's Law Dictionary (Revised Fourth Edition) as "the form and manner of conducting juridical business before a Court or Judicial Officer' regular and orderly progress in form of law; including all possible steps in an action from its commencement to the execution of judgment. While explaining the meaning of the word "proceeding" the following further observations have been made:- "An act which is done by the authority or direction of the Court, express or implied; an act necessary to be done in order to obtain a given end; a prescribed mode of action for carrying into effect a legal right. All the steps or measures adopted in the prosecution or defence of an action The proceedings embrace all matters that occur in its progress judicially It is a prescribed mode *of action for carrying into effect a legal right."
This observation is then explained particularly to include any application to a Court of justice, however, made, for aid in the enforcement of rights, for relief, for redress of injuries, for damages, or for any remedial object,
8. The word "proceeding" had come up for interpretation in cases from Indian jurisdiction. In the case of Ganga Naicken v. Sundaram Ayyar (AIR 1956 Mad. 597), it was observed that the word "proceeding" can be given a narrow or a were import depending upon the nature and scope of an enactment in which it is used and in the particular context of the language of the enactment in which it appears. It may in some enactments mean an action or that which initiates an action and in other enactments it may also mean a step in an action. In Brij Lal v. State bf U. P. (AIR 1958 All.
621), the word "proceeding" was defined to cover every step in an action and was held to be equivalent to the word "action". In England also similar interpretation has been given to the word. In Pryor v. City Officers Co. ((1883) 10 Q B D 504), the phrase was construed as a general phrase meant to cover every step in an action and was held to be equivalent to the word "action". In the American Publication "Words and Phrases" the term 'proceeding' is shown to be "a very comprehensive term meaning a prescribed course of action for enforcing a legal right and embracing the requisite steps by which judicial action is invoked." In Oxford Dictionary the word "proceeding" is defined as "a legal action or process, any act done by the authority of a Court of law." It is thus clear that the word "proceeding" cannot be taken in a restricted or limited sense to include only the actual trial of an offence where evidence on oath is recorded. In our view the word "proceeding" as used in the Regulation is very were and covers pew and acts which a Court or a tribunal may do or may have power to perform. The steps taken from the filing of application for bail and whatever is done by the forum does, in our opinion, fall within the word ---proceeding" under subsection (2) of section 3 of Regulation I of 1975.
9. The matter, however, does not end here. It is settled law that ouster of jurisdiction of ordinary Courts is not to be easily inferred unless there is express provision leading to that conclusion. This view finds strength from the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Ch. Zahoor Elahi v. The State (PLD 1977 SC 273), in which also the question of bail was before the Court and it held that in the absence of any provision excluding the jurisdiction of the High Court under Chapter XXXIX of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it could grant bail in respect of the offences triable under the special law. However, Regulation I of 1975 in section 16 specifically deals with matters of bail. This section reads as follows:- ---16 Bail.---(1) An offence triable under this Regulation shall be bailable or non-bailable according as the same is bailable or non-bailable under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of 1898), and the Deputy Commissioner shall have the same powers of granting bail to a person or persons accused of an offence as a Court has under that Code.
(2) The President of a Tribunal may, in regard to a case referred to the jirga for decision under section 5, exercise the powers of the Deputy Commissioner under this section."
This shows that the power of granting bail has been conferred on the Deputy Commissioner and the President of jirga appointed under the aforesaid Regulation. It is settled principle of law that when certain power is conferred on a Special Tribunal, the jurisdiction of the ordinary, Courts is ousted. The conferment and grant of power on the Deputy; Commissioner, therefore, ousts the jurisdiction of the Courts constituted under the Code of Criminal Procedure in this respect. An order passed for bail under section 16 is appealable to the Commissioner under section 23 of the Regulation and the order of the Commissioner is revisable under section 24 Wd. This shows that in matters of bail a machinery has been provided for in the Regulation itself which leads to the necessary conclusion that the jurisdiction of the ordinary Courts is excluded. The rules of interpretation and construction are very clear in respect of jurisdiction of the Special Tribunals and it has been held in a number of cases that where a special tribunal is appointed by an Act to determine question as to rights that Tribunal's jurisdiction to determine those questions is exclusive.
10. The above view also finds support from another fact. The power of granting bail under the Code of Criminal Procedure rests with the Magistrates, the Courts of Session and the High Court. On the of hand under Regulation I of 1975 such power is exercisable by the Deputy Commissioner, the President of Jirga, the Commissioner and the Provincial Government. If the two forums in two different heirarchies exercise concurrent jurisdiction then anomalous situation is likely to arise when contradictary orders are passed-one by the Courts of ordinary jurisdiction and the other by the special Tribunals. No doubt the Courts are not concerned to remove the anomalies by interpreting a provision if the language plain and admits of no other constructions but it is equally a settled principle of interpretation that when two constructions are possible one of which leads to anomalies then the Courts are bound to favour that construction by which the anomalous results can be avoided.
11. Incidentally it may be mentioned that the question involved had come up before this Court in the case of Hazrat Ghani v. Magistrate, First class, Timagarah (PLD 1980 Pesh. 183), and the Division Bench, in substance, had come to the view that the jurisdiction of granting bail rests with the Deputy Commissioner appointed under Regulation I of 1975 and not with ordinary criminal jurisdiction.
12. In view of the above discussion we answer the question formulated above in the negative.
13. This matter should now go to the concerned Bench for disposal of the petition.