VEDAPRAKASH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A-3 in S.T.C. No. 767 of 1987 on the file of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Madurai, is the petitioner. This is a petition under S.482, Cr. P.C. praying to call for the records in S.T.C. 767 of 1987 on the file of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Madurai, and to quash the proceedings in the case.

(2.) The Inspector of Police has filed the charge-sheet against the petitioner and two others under S.4(2)(c) and S.7(1)(b) of the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act, 1956. hereinafter referred to as the Act, before the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate and it has been taken on file and numbered as S.T.C. 767 of 1987. According to the petitioner, the entire documents filed in the case. under S.173, Cr. P.C. did not disclose any offence under Sec. 7(1)(b) of the Act, and under Sec. 7(1)(b) any woman or girl, so carries on prostitution and the person with whom such prostitution is carried on, in any premises (a) which are within the area or areas, notified under Sub-Sec. (3) or (b) which are within a distance of two hundred meters of any place of public religious worship, educational institution, hostel, hospital, nursing home or such other public place of any kind as may be notified in this behalf by the Commissioner of Police or Magistrate in the manner prescribed, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months etc.

(3.) Four witnesses have been cited and they have been shown to have been examined during investigation and none of them say that the premises of the petitioner in which the alleged offence has been committed is within a distance of two hundred metres of any place mentioned in S.7(1)(b) of the Act. Further according to the petitioner he has been falsely implicated by the Sub-Inspector of Police due to prior enmity and the petitioner is a reputed businessman in Madurai and he has been falsely implicated due to business rivalry and hence the petition.