ABDUL JALIL Vs. STATE,

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE above criminal revisions arise out of certain convictions under Section 26 of the Indian Forest Act. As the same question of law arises in all the cases namely, whether the three forests involved in these cases are 'Reserved Forests' within the meaning of Section 20 of the Indian Forest Act, all these petitions are being dealt with together in one common judgment.

(2.) THESE eleven cases arose within one or other of the three Reserved Forests (1) Chandrapur Reserved Forest, (2) Garjicherra Reserved Forest and (3) North Sonamura Reserved Forest. The Notifications made by the then Government of Tripura in respect of the said Reserved Forests were produced in the respective cases except in the cases out of which Criminal Revns. Nos. 8 and 9 of 1960 arose. In the case out of which Criminal Revision No. 24 of 1960 arose, only an uncertified copy of the Notification was produced.

(3.) BUT the learned Sessions Judge dealt with this question in his judgments. In the cases where the Notifications were produced, the learned Sessions Judge stated that the formalities prescribed under Sections 4 to 20 of the Indian Forest Act have not been gone through in respect of these Forests and no Notifications issued under Section 20 of the Act, because they happened to be declared as Reserved Forests by the Maharajah of Tripura when Tripura was a Native State and acting under Section 5 of the then existing Tripura Forest Law which was repealed in 1950, when the Indian Forest Act was brought into force.