EMPEROR Vs. PANDURANG BHIKHAJI JOSHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the accused against his conviction by the Presidency Magistrate, 4th Additional Court, of an offence under Rule 116(2) of the Defence of India Rules.

(2.) RULE 116, so far as material, enables the Provincial Government to require any person to furnish or produce to any specified authority or person any such information or article in his possession as may foe specified in the order, being information or an article which that Government considers it necessary or expedient in the interests of the defence of British India, the efficient prosecution of the war, or the public safety or interest to obtain or examine. Under that rule Government issued a notification on February 5, 1943, which, so far as is material for the present purpose is in these terms : The Government of Bombay is pleased to order that every person in the City of Bombay and Bombay Suburban District shall, on every Tuesday beginning with February 9, 1943, furnish to the Director of Civil Supplies (Statistics section), Bombay, a full and correct statement in the form specified of the stock of rice, paddy and rice flour held by him on his own account or on account of or in partnership with any other person on Sunday immediately preceding such Tuesday, if such stock amount to 10 maunds or more.

(3.) A more serious defence raised is that the accused was not liable to make a declaration on February 16 because he was not on that day " a person in Bombay". this Court in Emperor v. Dattatraya Ramchandra Agashe (1943) Criminal Appeal No.68 of 1943, decided by Beaumont C.J. and Rajadhyaksha J. on July 1, 1943 (Unrep.). considered this notification, and we pointed out that it is difficult, indeed impossible, to read the notification as applying only to a person holding stock in Bombay, because there is nothing to show that the stock to be declared must be locally in Bombay. But we were not called upon to decide what was the exact meaning of the phrase "every person in the City of Bombay", because in that case the accused had been in Bombay on the Tuesday on which the declaration had to be made. The question, however, arises for decision in this case.