EMPEROR Vs. BHURE MAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision against the conviction of the applicant for an offence under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. The charge against the applicant was that he took part in an unlawful procession which had been prohibited by an order lawfully passed under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The District Magistrate of Bareilly originally issued an order forbidding any procession whatever to pass down certain streets in Bareilly. This could only remain in force for two months, unless the period was extended by the Local Government under Sub-section (5). Before the expiry of the period of the order, the Local Government passed an order, which was duly notified in the Gazette, directing that the order should remain in force until cancelled by a notification in the United Provinces Gazette.

(2.) Four grounds of revision have been urged, three of them attacking the legality of the order passed by the Local Government and the fourth alleging that, even if the order was legal, the offence under Section 188 was not proved.

(3.) The first contention of the applicant is that the order could only have been extended lawfully with reference to religious processions. The learned Counsel relies on the preamble to the order, in which the learned District Magistrate sets forth his reasons for passing it. The District Magistrate considered that as these particular streets were narrow in the extreme, the taking of processions through them might cause constant risk of obstruction, annoyance and injury to persons pursuing their lawful occupations, and that, further, on the occasion of religious festivals there was the added danger of riot or affray. The operative part of the order was, however, a prohibition against any procession of any kind passing down the streets in question. The Local Government was not concerned with the reasons given by the Magistrate, but with the actual order passed by him, and if the Local Government considered that there was danger to human life, health or safety, or likelihood of a riot or affray in allowing processions to pass down these streets, the Local Government was perfectly competent under Sub-section (5) to extend the period of the order and was not limited to any particular kind of procession.