PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. CHERU KUTTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) this is an appeal against an acquittal of the accused in C.C. 305 of 1923 on the file of the Second Class Magistrate, Ponnani. The accused was charged for an offence under Section 170 of the Local Boards Act (XIV) of 1920 with keeping open a new private market. The Trying Court convicted him. The lower Appellate Court reversed the conviction and acquitted the accused, and Government have appealed against the acquittal.

(2.) The Taluk Board, Ponnani, has lately opened a public day market for the sale of arecanuts in Chalisseri Town. It is contended that accused keeps a private day market for the same purpose which is not licensed by the Taluk Board. This market was being held admittedly before the Taluk Board opened its market, and, when that was opened, the President issued a notice to the accused to show cause against prosecution for keeping an unlicensed market to which the accused replied that he has not been keeping any market at all.

(3.) The Local Boards Act does not define the term "market," but in this case I do not think that presents any difficulty. A market is a place set apart for the meeting of the general public of buyers and sellers freely open to any such, to assemble together, where any seller may expose his goods for sale and any buyer may purchase. The notification of the Taluk Board is Ex. E. It states that an arecanut day market is established "for the sale of arecanuts" and directs that in future, all arecanuts brought for sale shall be taken to the said market only and sold there. The first point that the prosecution has to prove, therefore, is that in the accused s so called private market, arecanuts are being brought for sale and sold, so as to constitute an act of interference with, or in the English legal phrase, a "disturbance," of the public market.