EMPEROR Vs. SHERIF DADUMIYAJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicant applies for revision of his conviction and sentence on a charge under Section 231 of the City of Bombay-Municipal Act.

(2.) The Bombay Municipality acquired in 1924 certain premises at Bapty Road for a public purpose which was the extension of the Municipal workshops. At the date of the acquisition sixteen parsons including the applicant were in occupation of the premises as tenants from the original owner and were using the premises as bullock and buffalo stables. The Municipality did not proceed with the demolition of the stables but allowed the occupants to continue on the premises by leave and license. Later the Municipality experienced a difficulty in collecting compensation from the occupants and on March 10, 1925, entered into an agreement with the applicant whereby the applicant was to pay to the Municipality a monthly sum of Rs. 180 as compensation for the use and occupation by him as licensee of the said premises. During the continuance of the agreement, the licensee was to be at liberty to continue the occupancy of the remaining fifteen occupants of the premises as licensees, to recover from them the amounts they had agreed to pry for their occupancy of the premises as licensees, and in case any of them vacated the premises to substitute for him any other occupant but on condition that such new occupant was to occupy the premises only as licensee and would vacate the same on being given forty-eight hours notice. The agreement further provided that the applicant was to give vacant possession of the premises to the Municipality on being given one month's notice. 2. It appears that the applicant is the owner of all the buffaloes that are now on the premises and is using one of the stalls on the premises as a place for garaging his motor car. On May 2, 1929, the Municipal Commissioner on behalf of the Municipality served a requisition on the applicant requiring him under Section 231 of the City of Bombay Municipal Act to drain the motor garage into the existing drain with all the necessary appliances and fittings. The requisition is dated April 24, 1929. The applicant having failed to comply with the requisition the present prosecution was launched against him.

(3.) In his statement before the learned Presidency Magistrate, 2nd Court, the applicant stated that he was a tenant of the Municipal Commissioner but was not a rent farmer. He admitted that in part of the stable he had kept buffaloes and that there was a garage where he had kept his motor car. He further admitted that all the buffaloes in the stable belonged to him.