Legal Provisions of Section 479 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.), India.
Case in which Judge or Magistrate is personally interested:
This section is based on the fundamental principle of natural justice that “no person can be a judge in his own cause”. Therefore, the section commands that no Judge shall try or hear the case in which he has a substantial interest nor can be hear an appeal against his own judgment. It is immaterial whether the interest is pecuniary or otherwise, but if it is sufficient to create a real bias, the judge or the Magistrate should refrain from handling that case.
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Thus, where a person in his capacity as Deputy Commissioner of a Devasthan passed certain order in a dispute between parties over Devasthan properties, he cannot later take up the same matter in his capacity as Magistrate.
Likewise, where a Magistrate was a shareholder of the prosecuting or the accused company, he is disqualified from trying the case of that company as per the provisions of Section 479 of the Code.
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The Supreme Court in Rameshwar Bhartiya v. State, has held that merely by giving sanction for prosecution, the Magistrate does not become personally interested in the case, and hence, the trial and conviction by him are not rendered illegal.
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The disqualification under this section operates only where the Judge or Magistrate has an active interest in a case but where he only has a passive interest in the matter, he may try and decide the case and the disqualification mentioned in this section will not apply in latter case.