GHANSHYAM AND OTHERS Vs. STATE OF UP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision raises the question of interpretation of Section 13 of the UP Public Gambling Act (UP Act III of 1867), particularly the explanation added thereto by the UP Public Gambling (Amendment) Act, 1952. The Applicants were convicted Under Section 13 of the said Act (hereinafter called the Act) and sentenced to a fine of Rs. 50/ - by the Tahsildar Magistrate Second Class, Sadabad, Mathura. In default of payment of fine they were directed to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one week. The conviction and sentence were affirmed in appeal by the Assistant Sessions Judge, Mathura. Hence, this revision.

(2.) THE prosecution case in short was that the accused were gambling in the night of 23 -11 -1966, at the bhatta of one Lala Jagdish Prasad near a public road and they were arrested from there at about 10 p.m. when they were engaged in the game.

(3.) THE learned Magistrate made a local inspection of the place of occurrence and drew up a site plan, though he appears to have lost sight of it while delivering the judgment. However, a perusal of the site plan makes it abundantly clear that the alleged gambling was being carried on at a place marked A in the site plan in the bhatta or field of Lala Jagdish Prasad. Adjacent to the western side of the bhatta is a footpath and thereafter the public road. It is also clear from the site plan that the bhatta is separated from the road on, its western side by a mendh which is only four feet high and which is also covered by bushes of moonj (a kind of grass of which strings or ropes are made).