STATE OF BIHAR Vs. MUNSHI KAHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question for decision in this appeal by the State of Bihar is, whether the acquittal of the respondents, who are five in number, is justified.

(2.) They were prosecuted for having committed an offence under Section 33 of the Indian Forest Act (16 of 1927), the relevant clause being Clause (c) of Sub-section (1) of that section, which makes it an offence to break up or clear for cultivation or any other purpose any land in any protected forest, contrary to any prohibition under Section 30 of the Act.

(3.) The substance of the prosecution case is that in the morning of the 9th September, 1959, four of me respondents were found to be ploughing a portion of the land appertaining to plot No. 607 in Sulumdag within me jurisdiction of Bishrampur police station in the district of Palamau. About six acres in that plot were found to have been cultivated by the respondents. The land tell within the demarcated area of a protected forest in regard to which a notification contemplated by Section 29 of the Forest Act had been issued by the State Government in July 1955. The accusation against the respondents, therefore, was that they had acted in contravention of a prohibition under Section 30 of the Act, which lays down that the State Government may by notification in the Official Gazette prohibit as from a date fixed by the notification, amongst other things, "the breaking up or clearing for cultivation, for building, for herding cattle or for any other purpose, of any land in any such forest".