A.M. Rangachariar vs Venkatasami Chetty

Pandrang Row, J.—The petitioner contends that the order of the 1st Class Bench Magistrate''s Court, Conjeevaram, dated October 31,

1933, discharging the respondent is contrary to law. The petitioner admitted during his examination as P.W. No. 1 in that Court that ""for the same

offence the accused was charged in B.C. No. 378 of 1933"", and the order of the Court dated March 3, 1933, which decided that case showed

that the accused had been acquitted. The Court held that the accused was not liable to be tried again for the same offence in view of Section 403,

Criminal Procedure Code, and the ruling reported in B.R. Ramanujachariar Vs. T.V. Kailasam Aiyar, .

It is now contended that the offence is not the same because the subsequent complaint alleged a subsequent notice to remove the same

encroachment; except that the notice in the present case bears a subsequent date, all the facts alleged in the present case are exactly the same as

the alleged in the previous case of the same year which ended in acquittal.

The question for decision is whether the if sue of a subsequent notice avoids the bar imposed by Section 403, Criminal Procedure Code. The

question has been answered in the affirmative by Pakenham Walsh, J., in the two cases reported in Moidi Beary Vs. The President, Taluk Board,

and President, Panchayat Board Vs. (Mandla) Chinna Venkata Reddi, after reviewing all the previous decisions. It is clear, however from the

Bench decision in In Re: Ramachandra Chetty, that the point now to be decided was not decided therein; on the other hand, it is expressly stated

therein that

if a prosecution had been instituted on the first requisition and had failed Or not been pressed, other considerations might come in, but that question

does not arise here.

There are conflicting decisions by Single Judges on the point, and I feel myself at liberty to act upon the view which commends itself to my

judgment. The offence consists, as laid down by the Bench in In Re: Ramachandra Chetty, in the failure to obey the notice issued u/s 169 of the

Local Boards Act to remove or alter the encroachment; or in other words, it is the failure-to remove or alter the encroachment specified in the

notice that constitutes the offence; once there is such failure, the offence is complete, and failure to perform an act is ex necessitate rei, continuous

in character. Another separate or distinct offence is not brought into being by the issue of a subsequent notice when that notice is by the same

authority and to the same person, and relates to the same encroachment or contains the same direction. To hold otherwise would be to go against

the spirit of the ancient maxim nemo debet his vexari pro Radem cause which is embodied in Section 403. I cannot bring myself to believe that it

would be right or just, when the Court has once decided that there has been no failure to remove an encroachment and acquitted the accused, to

make the same person liable to be tried again and again'' for failure to remove the same encroachment, simply because the same authority hopes to

get a different decision later on by issuing one notice after another. Otherwise, there would be no end to such prosecutions. The policy of the law

relating to this subject is clear; if a person has been convicted for failure to remove an encroachment, he is to be prosecuted again, not under Sub-

section (1) of Section 207 of the Local Boards Act for failure to remove the same encroachment, but for ""continuing breach"" under Sub-section 2

of that section which provides an effective remedy. The necessary implication is that if the person has been acquitted he goes free altogether.

Courts must generally lean, in cases of doubt, against any construction of a penal law which is patently oppressive to the subject and in favour of a

construction which is in accord with the general policy of the criminal law, which is to protect the subject from a fresh prosecution after he has been

convicted or acquitted in respect of what is in substance the same matter. Even if the question of law had to be decided otherwise, I would not

have been prepared in the circumstances of the case to interfere in revision with the order of the 1st Class Bench Magistrates'' Court. The Revision

Petition is, therefore, dismissed.