Pandey Parasnath Rai vs Municipal Corporation

Agarwala, J.—The petitioner has been convicted of an offence u/s 192, Bihar and Orissa Municipal Act (7 of 1922), and has been sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 50 or, in default, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month.

The first point to be noticed is with regard to the sentence. A person committing an offence u/s 192 of the Act is liable to be fined--not exceeding Rs. 500 but is not liable to imprisonment otherwise than in default of payment of the fine. Therefore, by reason of Section 67, I.P.C., the imprisonment to be awarded in default of payment of the fine must be ''simple.''

With regard to the merits, it has been contended that the prosecution is barred by limitation by reason of the provisions of Section 375, Municipal Act, which requires, in the case a continuing offence such as the present, that the prosecution shall be instituted within six months of the commission of the offence, or within six months from the time when it is first brought to the notice of the Commissioners of the Municipality.

The Courts below have found in the present case with regard to a part of the building which the petitioner is putting up, that the offence was brought to the notice of the Commissioners within six months of the date on which the prosecution was instituted.

The petitioner alleges that the offence was committed on 16th October 1939, and that the Commissioners had notice of it on that date.

The Courts found that there was no evidence to show that the offence had been committed on that date and held that the offence had been committed between 8th December 1939 and 14th January 1940. There is no merit in the point. The rule is discharged subject to this modification that the period of the imprisonment in default of payment of the fine will be one month''s simple imprisonment and not one month''s rigorous imprisonment.