STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH Vs. BATHU PRAKASA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals, by special leave, raise an apparently simple question which appears to be essentially one of act. But, as the real question to be answered was not correctly posed before itself by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, it misdirected itself as to what was to be really decided by it and also how it should be decided according to rules of ordinary logic as well as law. Ordinarily, this Court does not interfere with findings of fact. But, where the errors or logic as well as law, discussed below appear to us to be gross and to have occasioned a miscarriage of justice, we are constrained to interfere.

(2.) The crucial question to be decided may be put as follows:What did the respondents understand when they obtained permits for the despatch of "broken rice (raw, boiled)" shown in their export permits

(3.) If the respondents understood what their permits meant they could not, under the guise of these permits, transport any other kind of rice. it was their duty to abide by the terms of their permits, and to show, when proceeded against, that they did so.