STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. M SHIVAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the order of Jagarnatha Shetty, J., in W.P. No. 3807 of 1973. The respondent herein was the petitioner there'n. He had applied for a licence to run a touring cinema in the site bearing Sy. No. 292 in Kadugodi village. On inspection of that site, the District Magistrate, the licensing authority, found that the proposed cinema would be with in a range of 162 feet from the hospital in that village and that hence the condition prescribed in Rule 27(1) (i) (iv) of the Karnataka Cinemas (Regulations) Rules, 1971, (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) that the distance between a cinema site and any public hospital or a private nursing home should not be less than 50 metres, would be violated. The District Magistrate declined to grant the licence.

(2.) The order of the District Magistrate refusing to grant the licence was impugned in the writ petition. It was contended before the learned single Judge that the minimum distance cf 50 metres prescribed in Rule 27(1) (i) (iv), should be measured from the building of the hospital or the nursing home and not from the compound wall thereof, that in the present case the proposed cinema site was more than 50 metres from the building of the hospital and that hence there was no impedient to grant a licence. This contention found favour with the learned single Judge who quashed the order of the District Magistrate and directed him to grant a licence to the petiticner.

(3.) In this appeal preferred by the District Magistrate, the correctness of the interpretation placed by the learned single Judge on Rule 27 (1) (i) (iv), has been questioned.