BALADIN RAM Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In these appeals by special leave from a judgment of the Allahabad High Court the main question is whether the conviction of the appellant Baladin Ram under Section 466 of the U. P. Nagar Maha Palika Adhiniyam and under S. 467 of the Adhiniyam read with Rule 159 of the Municipal Account Code for which sentences of fine were imposed on him was legally sustainable. The other appellant Ram Nath who is his employee has also been convicted and sentenced.

(2.) The appellant Baladin Ram is the proprietor of Kashi Iron Foundry. That foundry was located in the neighbourhood of the railway goods shed of Varanasi Cantonment Station. It was within the limits of the Nagar Mahapalika but it was outside the octroi barrier. The goods taken from the railway shed to the premises of the foundry did not have to cross the barrier. On various dates in 1964 the foundry imported pig iron etc. under railway receipts. These were taken by Ram Nath who is an employee of the appellant from the goods shed and transported to the premises of the foundry without payment of the octroi dues. The procedure which should have been necessarily followed was that the railway receipt should have been take to the octroi barrier and octroi paid according to the assessment made by the octroi authorities. Thereafter the railway receipt had to be taken to the railway goods shed and delivery obtained of the goods. This admittedly was not done and the defence which was put up on behalf of the appellant Baladin was that for the last thirty years he had by arrangement with the concerned authorities, transported the goods directly from the railway shed. Thereafter whatever articles which were manufactured at the foundry out of the raw material were taken inside the city of varanasi, octroi was paid on them and no octroi was paid on articles which were sent out to other places and which never entered the jurisdiction of the municipal authorities. It was maintained that in the year 1960 an attempt was made on the part of the municipal authorities to depart from this practice. Baladin filed a suit in the Civil Court claiming a perpetual injunction restraining the municipal board which was the predecessor of the Nagar Mahapalika, Varanasi, from compelling payment of the octroi in a manner other than the one which had been followed for so many years. A compromise took place between the parties in that suit.

(3.) In the agreement which was entered into it was stated that the foundry had approached the Board for the grant of bonded warehouse facilities as contemplated by rules 204 to 222 of the Municipal Account Code and the Administrator of the Board had approved of the terms and conditions set in the agreement. The following conditions in that agreement deserve to be noticed: