THE CORPORATION OF MADRAS, REPRESENTED BY ITS COMMISSIONER AND ANR. Vs. THE ORIENTAL MERCANTILE COMPANY, LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THERE is only a simple ground of the interpretation of a statute, involved in this writ appeal though, indisputably, it possesses a measure of interest; the only authority that has any bearing, direct or indirect, on the concerned issue is an English decision. We may take it that the writ appellant, which is the Corporation of Madras represented by its Commissioner and Revenue Officer, desires to contend that the advertisement or hoarding displayed at the outer wall of the main building of a railway station, is not entitled to the exemption enacted in Section 129 -A, Sub -clause (e) of the City Municipal Corporation Act (IV of 1919). We may immediately set forth that Sub -clause which is in the following terms:

(2.) THE learned Judge then proceeded to refer to the dicta in South Eastern Railway Company v. Railway Commissioners, (1881) 6 Q.B. 586. Part of that judgment is in the following terms:

(3.) IT is at least arguable that the exhibition might have to be within the walls of the building (intramural), and not on the outside walls. But this apart, the exhibition in this case indisputably falls within the second clause also. The advertisement has been exhibited on a wall which is the property of the railway company, which certainly does not front any street. These outer walls front the compound or the enclosure, and it is quite conceivable in a case that the compound wall may itself be high enough to exclude the view of the advertisement by pedestrians passing in the street. It is only an advertisement affixed to the outer compound wall itself, which may be said to conceivably front the street, and therefore which might fall outside the ambit of the definition.