This is a petition under section 561-A, Cr. P. C. For quashment of the proceedings pending in the Court of learned Magistrate Isl Class, Multan.
Karim Bakhsh respondent chowkidar in Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, Multan moved the Deputy Commissioner, Multan for initiating proceedings against the petitioner under Pakistan Essential Services (Maintenance) Act, 1952. The Deputy Commissioner after considering the complaint, comments and replies submitted by Salah-ud-Din Khawaja, Managing Director, Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, Multan drew a complaint and forwarded it to the Magistrate to proceed in accordance with law. The trial Magistrate issued process against the petitioner on 13th August, 1981.
The petitioner has moved this Court for quashment of the proceedings. According to him the proceedings amount to gross abuse of the process of the Court for the reasons that from the perusal of the complaint read alongwith the statement of the complainant no offence whatsoever under section 6, subsection (2) of the ibid Act is disclosed, that no conviction can be recorded in the absence of the specific charge having been framed against the petitioner, that the prosecution of the petitioner is mala fide designed solely for putting pressure on the petitioner to reinstate the respondent and further that the evidence so far recorded does not disclose any violation of the directions regulating wages and conditions of the service as contemplated in the Act, further that the respondent is merely a casual employee and the terms and conditions alleged to have been contravened apply to the career employees only and not to the casual workers.
2. The learned Assistant Advocate-General has strongly contested the application. He states that the petitioner had earlier filed W. P. 7420/79 challenging the authority of the Deputy Commissioner to file the present complaint against him which was dismissed on 26th October, 1980 with a direction that in the first case it will be for the trial Court to adjudicate upon the question of the competency of the complaint, if any, made to it, and that the decision by this Court at this stage would amount to preempting the decision of the trial Court.
3. Learned counsel for respondent No, 1 has brought to my notice that the petitioner had submitted an application before the trial Court under section 249-A, Cr. P. C. Which according to the Court was not pressed or pursued by the petitioner.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has not been able to satisfy me as to why he has not pressed the said application before the trial Court. It is a settled proposition of law that the inherent jurisdiction given by section 561-A, Cr. P. C. Is not an alternate jurisdiction or an additional jurisdiction but is a jurisdiction preserved in the interest of justice to redress the grievances in which no other procedure is available or has been provided by the Code itself. It was observed in Ghulam Muhammad v. Muzammal Khan that the power given by section 561-A, Cr. P. C. Can certainly not be so utilized as to interrupt or divert the ordinary course of criminal procedure as laid down in the procedural Statutes. In Kasir Ali v. Munshi Mehar Khan it was observed as under :- "There is another aspect of the matter. There is a remedial provision which has been introduced in the Criminal Procedure Code by Law Reforms Ordinance, 1972. It is section 561-A. It enables an accused facing trial to obtain an order of acquittal from the Magistrate if at any stage the charge is found to be groundless or there is no probability of the accused being convicted of any offence.
The substance of the claim made by the appellant in the application under section 561-A, Cr. P. C.
Is exactly the same on which he can claim an acquittal under section 249-A namely that the charge is groundless and that there is no probability of the accused being convicted of any offence. This is a relief still available to the appellant not in any manner in curtailment of the power possessed by the Court under section 561-A, Cr. P. C. Of in derogation of it."
4. On going through the facts of the case, I agree with the learned Assistant Advocate-General that this application is pre-mature. The petitioner can raise all the aforementioned pleas before the trial Court which has ample powers under section 249-A to acquit the petitioner if in its opinion the charge is groundless or that there is no probability of hi conviction. And as the petitioner has an alternative remedy available to him under section 249-A, Cr. P. C. Resort to section 561-A, Cr. P. C.
Cannot be made. Accordingly, the petition is dismissed being pre-mature. The trial Court is directed to proceed with the matter as expeditiously as possible. PLD 1967 SC 317 PLD 1981 SC 607