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2.The petitioner who is an advocate cum notary notarised the said document. Armed with these two documents, namely, patta and the notarised resolution dated 19.04.2010, Anwar Basha executed documents appointing one Senthil Kumar (A3) as the power of attorney to sell the lands. Iqbal (A2) signed as an identifying witness. The trust properties were alienated in favour of third parties. When this came to the knowledge of the defacto complainant, she lodged information before the Inspector of Police, Samayanallur police station. Crime No.302 of 2014 was registered. The matter was investigated and the investigation officer filed final report against all the four accused, http://www.judis.nic.in namely Anwar Basha, Iqbal, Senthilkumar and the petitioner herein before the learned Judicial Magistrate No.IV (Special Court for Exclusive trial of Land Grabbing Cases), Madurai. The Magistrate took cognizance of the offences under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 120(B) r/w.109 of I.P.C. The case was taken on file in C.C.No.9 of 2019 and summons were issued to all the accused including the petitioner herein.

3.This original petition has been filed for quashing the proceedings in C.C.No.9 of 2019 on the file of the Judicial Magistrate No.IV(Special Court for Exclusive Trial of Land Grabbing Cases), Madurai, in so far as the petitioner is concerned.

4.The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner raised only one legal contention. According to him, the impugned proceedings are not maintainable against the petitioner herein. The petitioner had not anywhere claimed that the defacto complainant and the other members of the trust signed in his presence. He had merely notarised the document in question. Even if the document turns out to be a forged one and the petitioner had committed an offence, in view of Section 13 of the http://www.judis.nic.in Notaries Act, 1952, the jurisdictional magistrate could have taken cognizance of the offence only if a complaint to that effect had been filed by an authorised officer. The court below could not have taken the case on file on the basis of a police report. According to him, the issue is squarely covered by the decision reported in CDJ 2003 BHC 214 (Chandmal Motilal Bora v. State) and the decisions of the Madras High Court, namely, (2017) 1 MLJ (Crl) 475 (C.Elangovan V. State), Crl.R.C.(MD)No.208 of 2014 dated 16.09.2014 (V.Ramakrishnan V. State through its Inspector of Police) and Crl.O.P.(MD)No.25534 of 2007 dated 04.03.2010 (K.Ramakrishnan V. Rajesh Kataria). The petitioner's counsel would also point out that quite a few other High Courts have also taken the very same view. One such decision is reported in (2019) SCC Online CHH 48 (Rajkumar Mishra V. Gurjeet Kaur Bajwa).

6.I carefully considered the rival contentions and perused the materials on record.

7.It is beyond dispute that the petitioner notarised the document dated 19.04.2010 which purports to be the resolution passed by the trustees. The resolution ostensibly contains the signatures of as many as 23 trustees. The defacto complainant Kader Beevi is figuring at serial No.21. She had denied the signature attributed to her. The document also contains the signature attributed to one Noor Ali. He had passed away as early as on 28.05.2008. It prima facie appears that the document dated 19.04.2010 is a rank forgery. Now the question that arises for my consideration is whether the petitioner can be http://www.judis.nic.in prosecuted on the strength of a police report for having notarised such a document and whether Section 13 of the Act will come to his rescue.

(2) No magistrate other than a presidency magistrate or a magistrate of the first class shall try an office punishable under this Act.

The aforesaid provision is animated by a public policy. Notarised documents have a presumptive value attached to them. One may profitably go through the erudite decision of the Hon'ble Mr.Justice P.B.Mukharji reported in AIR 1967 Cal 636 (In Re :