STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH Vs. RAMJAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS State appeal is from the acquittal by a Magistrate, of charges under sections 3 and 4 of the Gambling Act of eight persons among whom Mangilal son of Jamnaram was the owner of a house which was presumed to be a common gambling-house, and the others seven in number who it was alleged were actually present at the lime of the search in execution of a warrant ostensibly issued under section 5 of the Act were presumed to have been present there for the purpose of gambling. Several of the allegations about the actual process of the gambling having been disbelieved, the case centers round the propriety or otherwise of raising under Section 6 of the same Act the presumption that it was a common gaming house and that the persons had collected there for the purpose of gambling. That not having been rebutted, it is urged by the State that these persons should have been convicted under the respective sections even though on the facts we may not be prepared to hold that there was direct evidence of the process of gambling going on before the eyes of the search party.

(2.) A batch of exactly similar State appeals have been disposed of by separate judgments by a Divisional Bench of this Court; now the State urges that there should be a reference to a fuller bench because the principles laid down in those divisional Bench judgments are not in accordance with the ones followed by the high Courts including the Madhya Pradesh in State v. Shambhudaya) AIR 1957 madh Pra 17. Out of the judgments sought to be placed for reconsideration before a fuller Bench the one in State v. Narendrakumar Cri. Appeal No. 421 of 1963, decided at Indore on 25th of September 1964 (MP) is typical: so that alone need be considered here. It was held there that in the circumstances of that case it would not be proper to raise the presumption contained in Section 6, because there was nothing to indicate that the authority issuing the warrant (who was the superintendent of Police of that District) had really been " satisfied " or " had reason to believe" that the house was being used for the said purpose Accordingly those State appeals were dismissed and the orders of acquittal, both of the house-owner and of the persons found there, by the Magistrate were confirmed.

(3.) THE basic position taken by the State here is that the credibility of the information or the satisfaction or the reason to believe is a matter solely for the authority issuing the warrant, and the mental situation is wholly subjective and that the Courts cannot investigate what the reason to believe was, whether It was credible, and whether the satisfaction was reasonable or otherwise. The argument in fact is, the moment the authority designated under Section 5 issues the warrant it should be conclusively presumed that the information was credible and that it had reason to believe, the principle being that official acts should always be presumed to have been properly done. It was incidentally urged that the source of the information need not be divulged and that the courts cannot ask to be told what it was and why the authority believed it. All this is sought to be derived from a number of rulings such as State v. Abdulgafar AIR 1956 Bom 420, AIR 1957 madh Pra 17 and Netram v. State Madh BLR 1955 (Cri) 164. The first two are judgments by Divisional Benches and the third by a Single Bench. Similar earlier rulings have also been cited; but the ground being covered by these three comparatively recent ones it is unnecessarv to go into them.