EMPEROR Vs. SHANKAR VENKUSA CHAVAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the Government of Bombay against an acquittal of accused Nos. 2, 3, and 4 by the Additional Sessions Judge of Sholapur. The facts are not in dispute. The accused in question were charged under Section 5 of the Bombay Prevention of Gambling Act of 1887 with having been found in a common gaming house for the purpose of gaming. The finding of fact by the Magistrate, which was accepted by the lower appellate Court, was that the accused in question were in a common gaming house for the purpose of gaming, but just before the arrival of police they escaped to a neighbouring house. Two of them were arrested in the neighbouring house about half an hour after the raid by the police, and the other of them, accused No. 2, was arrested three days later. The learned Additional Sessions Judge came to the conclusion that on those facts the accused were not "found" in a common gaming house within the meaning of Section 5, because they were not found there by the police.

(2.) The point raised is a short one, but not unimportant in connection with prosecutions under the Bombay Prevention of Gambling Act, and there appears to be no direct authority upon it. Section 5 of the Act provides: Whoever is found in any common gaming house gaming or present for the purpose of gaming, shall be punished.

(3.) and then it goes on: Any person found in any common gaming-house during any gaming therein shall be presumed, until the contrary be made to appear, to have been there for the purpose of gaming.