EMPEROR Vs. SHANKARBHAI KASHIBHAI PATEL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. This is an application in revision made by the accused who was convicted of an offence under Section 5(a) of the Essential Services (Maintenance) Ordinance, 1941, under the penal section, which is Section 7 .

(2.) THE Essential Services (Maintenance) Ordinance was published on December 20, 1941, under Section 72 in the ninth schedule of the Government of India Act of 1935. THE Ordinance provides in Section 3 that it shall apply to all employment under the Crown and to any employment or class of employment which the Central Government or a Provincial Government, being of opinion that such employment or class of employment is essential for securing the defence of British India, the public safety, the maintenance of public order or the efficient prosecution of war, or for maintaining supplies or services necessary to the life of the community, may, by notification in the official Gazette, declare to be an employment or class of employment to which the Ordinance applies. Section 4 enables orders to be made directing employees affected by the Ordinance not to leave a particular area. Section 5(a) provides that any person engaged in any, employment or class of employment to which the Ordinance applies, who disobeys any lawful order given to him in the course of such employment, is guilty of an offence under the Ordinance. THEn Section 7 provides penalties, and Sub-section (3) directs that no Court shall take cognizance of any offence under the Ordinance except upon complaint in writing made by a person authorized in that behalf by the Central or a Provincial Government.

(3.) IT appears that on September 7, 1942, Mr. Whitworth arrived in Ahmedabad, and, according to his evidence, took charge of the duties of Administrator of the Municipality from the Collector of Ahmedabad, and on September 15 he passed an order for breach of which the present applicant was convicted So far as material the order provides as follows : "Under the said Ordinance, I further order that all persona employed in connection with the maintenance, working or management of the said municipality to work properly and carefully and to dispose expeditiously of all tasks which have been or may be lawfully assigned to them in the course of such employment." The present applicant was not willing to perform any work, and accordingly a complaint was filed on September 16, by Mr. Whitworth.