PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. BONDADA RAMALINGESWARASWAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal against acquittal of the respondent who bad been convicted by the trial Court of an offence under Section 7, Sub-section (2) of the War Risks (Goods) Insurance Ordinance, which conviction was set aside by the learned Sessions Judge on the ground that at the time the prosecution was launched Section 7 of the Ordinance had been repealed and therefore there was no jurisdiction for the Courts to entertain the case.

(2.) THE only question argued by the learned Public Prosecutor is one of law, namely, that the repeal of Section 7 will not take away the right which the Crown has to initiate prosecutions for an offence committed when Section 7 was in force. For this argument reliance is placed on Section 6, Sub-clause (e), General Clauses Act, as well as on a decision of this Court in Chokka-lingam In re, 1945-2 M. L. J. 295 : A. I. R. (32) 1945 Mad 521: 47 Cr, L. J. 415), Mr. Chandra-sekhara Sastri for the respondent contends that even if Section 6 (e) is applicable, a different intention appears from the repealing enactment that for offences Committed when the repealed Act was in force no prosecution should be instituted after the same was repealed. The learned Sessions Judge has agreed with this view on the ground that since Section 7-A was retained in the statute and Section 7 alone had been repealed, the implication is that the Legislature did not want to prosecute the offenders for the offences but that the Legislature intended to retain the right to collect the insurance pretnia. This argument is countered on the other side by pointing out that S3. 12 and 12-A have been retained. If the intention of the legislature had been that no prosecution ought to be instituted after the repeal of Section 7, there was no necessity for retaining S3. 12 and 12-a which deal with the grant of sanction for prosecutions and also the compounding of prosecutions. Whatever might be said as regards the retention of the provision empowering the authority to compound the offence, there would have been no necessity whatever for allowing Section 12, which is a prohibitory section, to continue. Section 12 can contemplate only a state of a circumstances which comes into existence after the repeal of the other sections because if prosecutions had been instituted prior to the repeal of Section 7, no further sanction is necessary. Therefore what was intended - by the retention of Section 12, was that for future prosecutions after the repeal of Section 7, also sanction was necessary. It is, therefore, clear that future prosecutions were contemplated and envisaged. If the argument of the respondent that a different intention appears, namely, that no fresh prosecutions are to be instituted, (is to be accepted?) Section 12 becomes an absolute dead letter. I am not prepared to accept such an argument which will imply that an unnecessary section was retained in the Statute Book with no purpose whatever. The decision of the House of Lords in Wicks v. Director of Public Prosecutions, 1947 A. 0. 362, though it turn mainly on the construction of the particular enactment, is also helpful in this connection.

(3.) I would therefore set aside the order of acquittal passed by the learned Sessions Judge. Since there are other points which should be considered and which the Sessions Judge has not decided, the appeal is remanded to him for fresh hearing and disposal in the light of the observations contained in this judgment.