SUPERINTENDENT AND REMEMBRANCER OF LEGAL AFFAIRS ON BEHALF OF STATE OF WEST BENGAL Vs. SARDAR BAHADUR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a rule obtained by the Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, on behalf of the State of West Bengal, calling upon Sardar Bahadur Singh and three others, the accused men put up on trial under Sections 3 and 5 of the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, 104 of 1956, and now the opposite party before me. to show cause why their discharge under Section 251-A, Sub-section (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, ordered by a learned Presidency Magistrate on April 4, 1968, should not be set aside.

(2.) The offences under Section 3 ("keeping a brothel or allowing premises to be used as a brothel") and Section 5 ("procuring, inducing or taking woman or girl for the sake of prostitution") are said to have been committed in a boarding-house under the name and style of Wedgewood Hotel at 5-A Sudder Street within the jurisdiction of Taltola police-station in the presidency town of Calcutta. So, under Section 13, Sub-section (1) of the Act, there shall be a special police officer appointed by the State Government for dealing with such offences in such area. More, by Sub-section (2), Clause (a), of Section 13, such special police officer shall not be below the rank of an Assistant Commissioner of Police in the presidency town of Calcutta. These two provisions of law have received effect by the State Government's notification No. 1062 S. W./1A-1/58 dated May 7, 1958, published in the Calcutta Gazette, extraordinary, of the same date, appointing, amongst others, all Assistant Commissioners of Police under the control of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Detective Department, (for short, D. D. hereafter), as special police officers for dealing with the offences under the Act in the town of Calcutta.

(3.) The offences on hand were dealt with by Assistant Commissioner, A. S. Sarkar of D. D.