FATEH MOHD Vs. ADMINISTRATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by special leave is directed against the order of the Punjab High Court dismissing the Revision petition filed against the order of the Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi.

(2.) The appellant entered India on May 9, 1956, on a Pakistan passport dated February 11, 1956. He had a visa endorsed on the said passport permitting him to stay in India for three months. Under that visa he had to leave India on or before August 8, 1956. As he failed to do so, a notice under S. 3(2) of the Foreigners Act, 1946, as amended in 1957, hereinafter called the Act, was served on him on November 19, 1959, by the Delhi Administration. By that notice he was asked to report his presence personally to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office, Taj Barracks, Janpath, New Delhi, between 11 A.M. to 12 noon daily and enter into a personal bond in the amount of Rs. 5,000/- with two sureties in the amount of Rs. 10,000/- each for the due observance of the restrictions imposed on his movements. The appellant did not comply with the requirements of the notice. Therefore he was prosecuted under S. 14 of the Act for violating the provisions of S. 3 in the Court of the sub-Divisional Magistrate, Delhi. The appellant pleaded in defence that the said notice was not served on him and that he was a citizen of India. The learned Magistrate held on the evidence that the said notice was served on him and that he was not a citizen of India but a foreigner within the meaning of that Act and that he had committed an offence, inasmuch as he did not comply with the provisions of the said notice. On those findings he convicted him under S. 14 of the Act and sentenced him to six months' rigorous imprisonment. On appeal the Sessions Judge, Delhi confirmed the findings of the Magistrate and dismissed the appeal filed by him. He held that the burden was upon the appellant to prove that he was not a foreigner and that he had failed to discharge the same. He also rejected the plea of the appellant viz. that as on the date he entered India, he was not a foreigner within the meaning of the definition of 'foreigner' as it then stood he could not be convicted, on the ground that he was prosecuted for an offence committed after the definition was amended. The High Court confirmed the conviction of the appellant and the sentence passed against him. Hence the appeal.

(3.) The learned counsel Mr. Nur-ud-Din appearing for the appellant raised before us the following two points:(1) the appellant was not a foreigner within the meaning of the definition of a foreigner as existed at the time he entered India, i.e. on May 9, 1956, and therefore the High Court went wrong in convicting him, and (2) the appellant is not a foreigner even under the amended definition.