Special Metropolitan Magistrates
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Summary
On request by the Central or State Government, the High Court may give a current or former government employee the powers of a Metropolitan Magistrate for particular cases or classes of cases in a metropolitan area. The person must meet the qualifications or experience the High Court specifies and is called a Special Metropolitan Magistrate, appointed for terms up to one year. The High Court or State Government can also empower them to exercise the powers of a Judicial Magistrate of the first class outside the metropolitan area.
Example
Priya, a municipal officer, is asked by the State Government to help clear a backlog of tenancy disputes in Mumbai. The High Court appoints her as a Special Metropolitan Magistrate for those tenancy cases for one year. She can hear and decide those disputes like a Metropolitan Magistrate, and may later be authorised to exercise first-class Judicial Magistrate powers outside the city.
Bare Act
Enacted text(1) The High Court may, if requested by any Central or State Government so to do, confer upon any person who holds or has held any post under the Government, all or any of the powers conferred or conferrable by or under this Code on a Metropolitan Magistrate, in respect to particular cases or to particular classes of cases in any metropolitan area within its local jurisdiction:
Provided that no such power shall be conferred on a person unless he possesses such qualification or experience in relation to legal affairs as the High Court may, by rules, specify.
(2) Such Magistrates shall be called Special Metropolitan Magistrates and shall be appointed for such term, not exceeding one year at a time, as the High Court may, by general or special order, direct.
(3) The High Court or the State Government, as the case may be, may empower any Special Metropolitan Magistrate to exercise, in any local area outside the metropolitan area, the powers of a Judicial Magistrate of the first class.
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