NARAYANAN NAMBOODIRI Vs. PRESIDENT KURUMATHUR PANCHAYAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Revision Petition arises out of a prosecution under the provisions of the Madras Village Panchayats Act X of 1950. The petitioner is the accused and the respondent is the President of the Kurumathur panchayat Board who is the complainant. The petitioner was convicted by the honorary Special First Class Magistrate, Cannanore for his failure to take out a licence for the year 1958-59, for carrying on the process of converting latex into crude rubber sheets in his Rubber Estate within the limits of the Kurumathur panchayat Board, as provided by S. 91 of the Act and the Rules and Notifications thereunder and was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 25/- and in default, to suffer simple imprisonment for fifteen days. On revision to the Sessions Court, Tellicherry, that order was confirmed. Hence this revision.

(2.) THE only grounds advanced by the learned counsel for the revision petitioner are (i) that distraint proceedings are a condition precedent to the initiation of criminal prosecution and (ii) that the conversion of latex into rubber sheets is not a manufacturing process so as to bring it within the purview of Clause VI (c) of the Notification published by kurumathur Panchayat.

(3.) WHAT is intended to be controlled is therefore clear. It is to control the use of any place within the limits of the Panchayat, for making rubber sheets, tearing up rubber sheets, etc. which is considered to emit offensive or unwholesome smell. Reading S. 91 in the context in which it is placed in the Act, in the chapter entitled 'public Safety, Convenience and health" and understood with reference to the object in enacting it, the word 'manufacturing' occurring in the rule and notification has to be interpreted in a wide sense and not in the restricted sense in which it was construed in the case cited. We are therefore of the view that the word 'manufacturing' used in the rule and notification under the Village Panchayats act was intended to convey the larger meaning of "making". The revision petition fails and is dismissed. Dismissed.