IN RE: M.P. GOVINDARAJ Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts in this case are briefly the following. The petitioner Govindaraj is doing business in Karaikal. He was found proceeding in a lorry MDF. 2838 near Kancheepuram and in the lorry there were 125 tins each containing four gallons of French Polish. French Polish is an item included in the Madras Denatured Spirit Methyl Alcohol and Varnish (French Polish) Rules, 1959, series of rules framed by the Madras Government under the powers conferred under the Madras Prohibition Act. Rule 6(ii) of the Rules provides that

(2.) The petitioner along with the driver was prosecuted before the Sub -Magistrate; Kancheepuram, for contravention of the above rule read with Rule 11 of the said Rules. The driver was acquitted and the petitioner was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 25. His conviction and sentence were confirmed by the District Magistrate in appeal. He has filed the present revision case.

(3.) Learned Counsel for the petitioner stressed before me that the prosecution case itself is that the petitioner was taking the aforesaid quantity of French Polish from Karaikal under the strength of Exhibit P -4, a gate pass issued by the authorities at Karaikal, to Bangalore for which State he had a permit, Exhibit P -3, issued in his favour by the Mysore Excise Department. It is therefore not at all in dispute, that the accused was taking this quantity of French Polish from Karaikal, an Union territory, to Mysore, another State, through the intervening State of Madras. The accused's Counsel urged that this action of the accused, will not satisfy the definition of transport, and therefore his conviction Under the aforesaid rule cannot be upheld. 'Transport' is defined in Sec. 3(20) of the Madras Prohibition Act, as meaning to move from one place to another within any local area to which that Act applies. It is urged by learned Counsel that though there was movement inside the Madras State of the goods when they were found at Kancheepuram, the actual movement of the goods for the purpose of the definition of transport, must be reckoned from the starting point, that is, Karaikal to the destination, namely, in Mysore territory. It will therefore be an error, to construe the act of transport which in this case was from Karaikal to Bangalore, as consisting of an infinite series of transports from any two intervening points selected at random between the above two termini. For this view, he has the support of the judgment of Sir John Beaumont, C.J. of the Bombay High Court in a Bench decision reported in Emperor v/s. Dagadu Shetiba : AIR1938Bom43 . That case dealt with the definition of ' transport' given in the Bombay Abkari Act (V of 1878), which is in almost identical terms with the definition in the Madras Prohibition Act. Referring to many absurd situations which will arise, if the act of transport is construed as involving a number of minor transports within any two points between the termini, comprising of the starting point, and the destination the learned Judge observed: