I.S. Tiwana, J.
1. These eight petitions (Cr. Misc. Nos. 1271-M, 1274-M, 1277-M& 1280-M of 1985 and 1835-M, 1837-M, 1839-M & 1841 -M of 1987) are being disposed of together on account of the similarity of facts and the contentions raised therein. However, to deal with the various points raised by Mr. H.L learned Senior Advocate for the petitioners effectively, these deserve to be divided into two groups - the first four forming one set and the remaining four, another, firstly the facts of the first set.
2. As a result of the four complaints filed by the Deputy Chief Controller of Imports and Exports, New Delhi alleging the violation of the various conditions of the four import licences granted in favour of the petitioners, they were summoned by the Special Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Patiala, vide his order dated January 7, 1984 to face trial under Section 6 of the Imports & Exports (Control) Act, 1947, read with Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code. The details of these complaints which appear to have been prepared and signed on August 19, 1978 but were filed in January 1981, need not be adverted to in view of the fact that it is not the stand of the learned counsel for the petitioners that the allegations contained therein do not disclose a prima facie case even. The petitioners instead of putting in appearance before the Magistrate in response to the summons issued to them, chose to impugn those orders before the Additional Sessions Judge, Patiala, by way of four different but similar revision petitions. These petitions were disposed of through a common order dated September 4,1982, by holding that the same were not competent in view of the provisions of Section 397(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, the impugned orders being interlocutory orders. Thereafter the petitioners preferred four criminal misc. petitions under Section 482, Cr. P.C. to assail the orders of the Special Magistrate summoning them as accused and those of the revisional Court declining to interfere with those orders. These petitions were again disposed of by this Court (Ajit Singh Bains, J.) on February 8,1984 through a common order. Some of the material observations made in that order which are relevant for disposal of the present petitions were as follows :-
'Admittedly, the allegations in the complaint disclose a prima facie case against the petitioner and Mr. Sibal. learned counsel for the petitioners has not assailed these allegations. He has only raised the plea that the complaint has been filed after a long delay and the same amounts to abuse of the process of Court....
In my view, the circumstances explained by the aforesaid Inspector of the C.B.I. in his affidavit as quoted above, show that the period from the year 1975 till date has been sufficiently and properly explained and no delay was caused in completing the investigation. Thus, there is no merit in the contentions of Mr. Sibal that the complaint has been filed belatedly and that it was abuse of the process of the Court.'
The petitioners again preferred special leave petitions before the Supreme Court of India against the aforesaid orders of this Court. The same were disposed of by their Lordships on January 31,1985, with the following observations :-
'Special leave petitions are allowed to be withdrawn since the petitioners want to apply for a review of the judgment of the High Court on the ground that the offence with which the petitioners are charged is said to have taken place prior to coming into force of the Economic Offenders (Non-applicability of Limitation) Act, 1974, or on any other ground available to them in law.'
It is a sequel to this order that these four petitions [of the first set] have been filed for the review of the order of this Court dated February 8, 1984.
3. The disposal of these petitions need not delay us long as Mr. Sibal does not dispute the legal proposition that under no provision of the Criminal Procedure Code this Court can review its judgment passed in exercise of its appellate or revisional jurisdiction terminating a criminal proceeding one way or the other. As is indicated earlier, vide order dated February 8,1984, this Court had declined to interfere with the orders of the lower Courts, i.e., the summoning orders of the trial Magistrate and the revisional orders of the Additional Sessions Judge. Thus those orders assumed finality. As a matter of fact it was in the light of this accepted legal position that the other four petitions, i.e., of the second set referred to above, were filed by Mr. Sibal and as he wants to put it, 'independently of the earlier proceedings'. He sought to contend in the light of certain observations made by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Superintendent and Rememberancer of Legal Affairs v. Mohan Singh and Ors., AIR 1975 SC 1002 that there is no legal bar to the maintenance of successive applications invoking the inherent jurisdiction of the Court to quash the proceedings pending in the subordinate Courts to secure the ends of justice, and that on facts the case in hand is one where the petitioners deserve to be granted that relief. In a nutshell, the suggestion was that the continuation of those proceedings before the trial Magistrate not only amounts to abuse of process of the Court but virtually amounts to persecution of the petitioners on account of the mental stress and strain they have undergone thus far. According to the learned counsel, continuation of these proceedings would be gross injustice to his clients. He highlighted the delay that has already occurred in the disposal of the cases pending against the petitioners. As against this, the stand of Mr. Brar, learned counsel for the complainant, was that firstly there is no limitation applicable to the filing or continuation of these proceedings in view of the Economic Offenders (Non-applicability of Limitation) Act, 1974 which squarely covers the complaints in question and secondly, neither has there been any unnecessary delay on the part of the authorities concerned in launching the prosecution, and in case there was any, the same was unavoidable in view of the detailed investigations involved. He even maintained that it were the petitioners who were responsible for the said delay. In order to press his submission he highlighted that even till today they have not chosen to present themselves before the trial Court. He further pointed out that the question of delay in the conclusion of these proceedings has already been considered by this Court vide its order dated February 8,1984 and there is no legal justification to review that order. He also pointed out that subsequent to the dismissal of the earlier similar petitions by this Court vide order dated February 8,1984, their Lordships of the Supreme Court on January 31, 1985, ordered stay of the proceedings pending in the Court of the trial Magistrate. This order of course was passed as a result of a move made by the prosecution for the transfer of these cases from Patiala to Delhi where two charge-sheets were filed against Mr. J.C. Verma, father of Mr. R.K. Verma, as most of the material evidence in the two sets of cases was common and different, trials of these cases were likely to prejudice the case of the prosecution. He argued that in the light of this order, no progress in these cases could possibly be achieved. Having given my thoughtful consideration to the respective contentions of the learned counsel, I find that no case has been made out to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of this Court to quash the proceedings pending against the petitioners at Patiala.
4. So far as the first submission of Mr. Sibal that successive applications under Section 482, Cr. P.C. can be maintained, is concerned, I find it to be an argument more of form than of substance. As has already been pointed out vide the earlier petitions under Section 482, Cr. P.C. the petitioners had sought nothing but the revision or quashing of the orders passed by the trial Magistrate and their affirmance by the revisional Court. So in substance what the petitioners seek even now is the review of the order of this Court dated February 8, elude with a specific prayer that the orders of the trial Magistrate and the revisional Court as also the complaints filed against the petitioners be quashed. Facts in Mohan Singh's case (supra) on which reliance has been placed by Mr. Sibal to sustain this argument of his were materially different. That was a case where the question of quashing an earlier order passed by any of the subordinate Courts did not arise. The question debated before their Lordships of the Supreme Court was 'whether the High Court had jurisdiction to make the order dated 7th April, 1970 quashing the proceeding against respondent Nos. 1,2, and 3 when on an earlier application made by the first respondent, the High Court had by its order dated 12th December, 1968 refused to quash the proceeding'- After Holding that there is no provision in the Code of Criminal Procedure which can enable the High Court to review or revise its order terminating a criminal proceeding, they made the following meaningful observation :-
'It is, however, not necessary for us to examine the true effect of these observations as they have no application because the present case is not one where the High Court was invited to revise or review an earlier order made by it in exercise of its revisional jurisdiction finally disposing of a criminal proceeding. Here, the situation is wholly different. The earlier application which was rejected by the High Court was an application under Section 561A of the Code of Criminal Procedure to quash the proceeding and the High Court rejected it on the ground that the evidence was yet to be led and it was not desirable to interfere with the proceeding at that stage.'
It is thus plain that in the instant case after the affirmance of the trial and the revisional Courts' orders by this Court on February 8, 1984, the Court cannot possibly review, revise or by-pass that order.
5. Even on facts I am satisfied that no case has been made out for the grant of the relief prayed for. It is no doubt true that the alleged offences were committed by the petitioners long back and considerable time was consumed by the prosecution to launch the proceedings, but this Court vide its order dated February 8,1984 had accepted that it could not be held guilty of any unnecessary or unwarranted delay. Bains, J., had categorically held that the time consumed by the authorities concerned till that date, i.e., the date of the Order had been 'sufficiently and properly explained'. He, therefore, repelled the submission of Mr. Sibal that the complaint had been filed 'belatedly and that it was an abuse of the process of the Court'. There can possibly be no going back on these findings. Further, so far as the time lag subsequent to the passing of this order is concerned, not only the proceedings in the trial Court remained stayed by the order of their Lordships of the Supreme Court, but the petitioners themselves appear to be the cause of it. It is the conceded position that they have not so far chosen to put in appearance before the trial Court. In the face of this factual position, how can they reasonably complain of any delay in the completion of the proceedings against them.
6. For the foregoing reasons I am of the considered view that the petitioners have no case either in law or on facts. These petitions thus must fail and are dismissed.