BABULAL SANTRA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition for revision of an order made by a Magistrate, first class, Midnapore, on December 1, 1954, convicting the Petitioner under Section 6(1) of the West Bengal Private Forests Act, 1948, and sentencing him to pay a fine of Rs. 100, in default to suffer simple imprisonment for one month against this order of conviction and sentence an application for a reference to this Court was made to the Sessions Judge of Midnapore, who, however, by an order dated January 15, 1955, declined to interfere.

(2.) The case for the prosecution briefly was that the Petitioner and another person were directed by the State Government, in pursuance of the provisions of the West Bengal Private Forests-Act (XIV of 1948), to submit a working plan with regard to a particular forest within police station Kharagpur. The Government notification, ex. 1, relates to the proposed plan in. question and calls upon every owner of a private forest in the area defined in the notification to prepare a working plan for the conservation of forest and submit a plan to the Regional Forest Officer on a date mentioned in the notification. It appears that no plan was submitted by the accused Petitioner with the result that the Range Officer made out a working plan which is proved and exhibited in the case. This working plan, ex. 2, was served on the Petitioner and evidence was called by the prosecution in proof of such service. The prosecution allegation is that despite the notice and the working plan served on the Petitioner the latter felled certain trees in his forest and thereby contravened the terms and conditions of the plan, ex. 2, which was duly served upon him. The gravamen of the offence charged in the case was that the Petitioner felled certain trees. That was obviously, according to the prosecution, a piece of conduct which amounted to failure or neglect to carry out the plan devised to conserve the forest.

(3.) The Petitioner pleaded innocence and his case appears to be that he was not responsible for the felling of the trees in question and he suggested that miscreants might have been responsible for such felling.