MT BAFATAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a reference by the Sessions Judge of Mirzapur, recommending that the conviction of Mt. Bafatan under Section 185, Municipalities. Act (Local Act 11 of 1916 as amended by Act 2 of 1919), and the sentence, of. fine of Rs. 15 passed on her beset aside. The reference came up before a learned Judge of this Court who referred it to a Bench of two Judges. The facts giving rise to the reference are as follows: By an application, dated 14 January 1931, Mt. Bafatan notified her intention to the Chunar Notified Area Committee to construct enclosure walls and a kothri in her house and prayed for permission to make the said constructions. B. Baldeo Prasad, the Vice President of the Notified Area Committee, inspected the- locality on 23 January 1931, and. reported that the permission prayed for should be granted on certain conditions. The report was put up before B. Mathura Prasad, the President of the Notified Area, who before passing orders decided to inspect the locality himself. B. Mathura Prasad inspected the locality on 29 March 1931, and found that Mt. Bafatan had already made certain constructions without the permission of the Notified Area Committee. A notice was then issued to Mt. Bafatan calling upon her to show cause why she should not be prosecuted for building her house without the permission of the Notified Area Committee and eventually a complaint was filed against Mt. Bafatan under Section 185, Municipalities Act, by B. Mathura Prasad, the President of the Notified Area Committee, in the Court of Th. Ram Singh, a Magistrate of the First Class. The learned Magistrate convicted Mt. Bafatan for an offence punishable under Section 185, Municipalities Act, and sentenced her to pay a fine of Rs. 15. Mt. Bafatan filed an application in revision in the Court of the Sessions Judge against the order of the Magistrate and the learned Sessions Judge being of opinion that the conviction was bad in law has made the present reference to this Court with the recommendations noted above.

(2.) The constructions made by Mt. Bafatan are shown on plan Ex. C on the record. They consist of enclosure walls, a kothri, a room marked A, and a platform marked B on the plan. She was not called upon to show cause with respect to the construction of platform B, nor was she convicted for having constructed that platform by the learned Magistrate. We are therefore not concerned in this reference with the platform marked B on the plan. The question for consideration in the present reference is whether the conviction of Mt. Bafatan, under Section 185, Municipalities Act, as regards the remaining constructions made by her is legally sustainable. The decision of this question depends on the answer to the question whether the amendments made in the Municipalities Act (2 of 1916) by the Municipalities Amendment Act (2 of 1919), do or do not apply to Notified Areas.

(3.) By Section 337, Municipalities Act, the Local Government is authorized to declare, by a notification, that in respect of any local area, other than a Municipality, town area or agricultural village, at is desirable to make administrative provision for some or all the matters described in Secs.7 and 8 of the Act, by extending thereto the provisions of Chap. 12 of the Act which deals with by that section that a local area in regard to which such a notification has been issued is to be called a Notified Area. The power to apply or adapt to a Notified Area the provisions of any section of the Municipalities Act, or of any Act which may be applied to a Municipality, or part of such section, or any rule, regulation or bye-law in force or which can be imposed in a Municipality under the provisions of the Municipalities Act or any other Act, is reserved to the Local Government by Section 338(1a), Municipalities Act.