Srinagar: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh on Tuesday held that if an application of revision has been made by any person, either to the High Court or to the Sessions Judge, no further application by the same person shall be entertained by either of them.
“This means that if a person has invoked the revision jurisdiction of a Sessions Judge against an order of Magistrate, he cannot file second revision against the said order before the High Court and vice versa,” the court noted.
The Court while dismissing the revision application filed by Ishtiyaq Ahmad against a maintenance order passed by 1st class Magistrate Charar-i-Sharif on 15 February, 2017 held the petitioner has filed a revision petition before Principal sessions, Budgam which came to be dismissed.
Justice Sanjay Dhar while perusing the case recorded that in the instant case, when the Sessions Judge refused to interfere with the order of the Magistrate, the High Court’s jurisdiction has been invoked by the petitioner to avoid the order of the Magistrate and not that of the Sessions Judge.
“The bar of Section 435(3) of the Criminal procedure code is, therefore, effectively attracted and the bar cannot be circumvented by subterfuge of treating the revision petition as directed against the Sessions Judge’s order. On this ground alone, the petition is liable to be dismissed,” the court held.
The court observed that Sub-section (3) of Section 435 of the J&K Code of Criminal Procedure, clearly bars a second revision petition which reads that If an application under this section has been made by any person either to the High Court or to the Sessions Judge, no further application by the same person shall be entertained by the either of them.
The court noted that apart from the above, what comes to the fore is that the petitioner has grossly abused the process of law by filing the instant petition as previously he had filed a petition under Section 561-A of the J&K Code of Criminal Procedure before High court which was dismissed on 4 October, 2018.
However, the petitioner during the pendency of the aforesaid proceedings, it appears, invoked the revisional jurisdiction of the Sessions Court, Budgam, without even disclosing that he had already approached the High Court by way of petition under Section 561-A of J&K CrPc.
“This is sheer abuse of process of court,” Justice Dhar said.
Justice Dhar further noted that the consequences of the tactics that the petitioner has adopted in this case, would have led to passing of conflicting and contradictory orders by different courts or even by the same court.
“Had the Sessions Judge interfered with the order of the trial Magistrate in ignorance of the order passed by the High Court in the petition under Section 561-A No.42/2017, a peculiar situation would have arisen where order of the Sessions Judge and that of this Court would have come into conflict with each other,” Justice Dhar said.
The court noted that the facts which emanate in the present case, show the level to which unscrupulous litigants, of which petitioner appears to be a classic example, can stoop to get the desired results.
It was recorded by court that the petitioner has grossly misused and abused the process of courts.
“A dishonest litigant like the petitioner cannot be shown any leniency by the Courts and such elements cannot be allowed to abuse the process of Courts,” Justice Dhar recorded.
The court further said that such trends need to be arrested and put down with an iron fist so that trust of the genuine litigants in the institution is maintained.
The court, while dismissing the revision petition, imposed exemplary costs of Rs 50,000 upon the petitioner, which he was directed to deposit with the Registrar Judicial of the Court within a period of one month from today.
“Upon deposit of the costs by the petitioner, the same shall be paid to the respondent (Wife) after proper verification and identification,” court said.
Meantime the Registrar Judicial was asked to furnish a report about the deposition of costs by the petitioner and payment thereof to the respondent after one month.

NUSRAT SIDIQ