EMPEROR Vs. GULAM RASUL GULAM AHMED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the Government of Bombay against an order of acquittal made by the First Class Magistrate, Olpad. The accused was charged with having committed a breach of Rule 93 (2) of the rules under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, He was the driver of a motor trolly which was licensed as a goods vehicle. On December 1, 1940, he was found carrying twenty-three persons in the lorry from Surat to Kathodra, He admitted having carried these persons as alleged. His defence was that he was carrying them not as passengers for hire but as his personal friends, that there were no goods being carried in the vehicle at the time, and that the space in the vehicle, nine and a half feet by five and a half feet, was sufficient to accommodate all these persons.

(2.) THE learned Magistrate acquitted the accused on the ground that as the trolly, though licensed only to carry goods, was not actually carrying any goods at the time, there was no breach of Rule 93(2). Rule 93, Sub-rule (1), provides that, save in the case of a stage carriage in which goods are being carried in addition to passengers, no person shall be carried in a goods vehicle other than a bona fide employee of the owner or the hirer of the vehicle, and except in accordance with this rule. Sub-rule (2) provides that no person shall be carried in the cab of a goods vehicle beyond the number for which there is seating accommodation at the rate of fifteen inches measured along the seat, excluding the space reserved for the driver, for each person, and not more than six persons in all in addition to the driver shall be carried in any goods vehicle. Section 2 of the Motor Vehicles Act defines a " goods vehicle " as any motor vehicle constructed or adapted for use for the carriage of goods. It is not disputed that the motor vehicle in this case was a trolly licensed as a goods vehicle.