ABDUS SAMAD Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave from the judgment dated 18 July, 1969 of the High Court at Calcutta convicting the appellant under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act and sentencing him to simple imprisonment for one month.

(2.) The appellant was served with a notice on 21 February, 1962 requiring him to leave India within thirty days. He did not do so. He was arrested on 7 May, 1962. He was prosecuted under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act for violation of the notice to leave India. The defence of the appellant was that he was not a foreigner but was an Indian citizen. The Magistrate found that the prosecution failed to prove that the appellant was a foreigner and acquitted the appellant. The High Court reversed the acquittal.

(3.) In the present case the domicile of origin communicated by operation of law to the appellant at birth at Sylhet could not on partition of India be called Indian. The domicile of choice is that every person of full age is free to acquire in substitution for that which he possesses at the time of choice. By domicile is meant a permanent home. Domicile means the place which a person has fixed as a habitation of himself and his family not for a mere special and temporary purpose, but with a present intention of making it his permanent home.