FATEH SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has been convicted under Section 65(1), Bihar Waqfs Act, 1947, for failure to prepare a budget of the estimated income and expenditure of the Waqf estate known as Waqf-Alal-Aulad estate of Rani Sayeeda Khatoon, of which the petitioner is the Mutawalli, and sending the same budget to the Majlis as required by Sub-section (1) of Section 58 of the said Act. He has been sentenced to a fine of Rs. 100/-or, in default, simple imprisonment for 15 days. Section 58(1), Bihar Waqfs Act, 1947, requires that the Mutawalli of every Waqf shall, before the fifteenth, day of January each year, prepare a budget of the estimated income and expenditure of such Waqf for the next succeeding financial year and shall forthwith send a copy thereof to Majlis. By the Majlis is meant the Bihar Subai Sunni Majlis-e-Awaqf. The prosecution case was that it was the duty of the petitioner in his capacity as Mutawalli of the said estate to prepare the budget for the year 1953-54 before the fifteenth day of January, 1953, and forthwith send a copy of it to the Majlis. This the petitioner failed to do. Therefore, on 14-2-1953, a complaint was made against the petitioner under the authority of the Sadr of the Majlis.

(2.) The defence of the petitioner was that he kept the accounts of the estate according to the Fasli year which began in October and ended in succeeding September of each year. The petitioner alleged that in 1951, and again in 1952, he submitted the budget estimate according to the Fasli year. The case of the petitioner was that on 20-5-1952, he submitted the budget for the year 1360 Fasli, which would correspond to the period from October, 1952, to September, 1953. The petitioner further alleged that there was a criminal case against him for non-submission of the budget of 1952-53 by 15-1-1952, and that case ended in acquittal by a judgment of Mr. . C. Gupta, a Magistrate exercising first class powers at Patna, dated 7-2-1953.

(3.) The Courts below concurrently held that under Sub-section (1) of, Section 58, it was the duty of the petitioner to prepare a budget of the estimated income and expenditure of the Waqf estate gor the year 1963-54 before 15-1-1953, and to send a copy thereof to the Majlis, and the petitioner not having done so, he was liable to be punished under Sub-section (1) of Section 65 of the Act. The courts below refused to accept the plea of the petitioner that the budget estimate had to be prepared according to the Fasli year and that the budget estimate which the petitioner sent on 20-5-1952, amounted to a compliance with the requirements of the law as laid down in Sub-section (1) of Section 58, at least so tar as the budget estimate for the year 1953-54 was concerned. On that basis the petitioner was convicted and sentenced by the courts below.