SIKANDARKHAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. This order will also govern Criminal Revision No, 50-B of 1934. The applicants Sikandar Khan and Lindsay have been convicted, under; Section 3, Public Gambling Act. They were the proprietor and manager respectively of a fair known as the Willingdon City Fair which was at Akola from December 1932 to February 1933. Certain gambling games were admittedly played at the fair, and the only question for decision is whether those games were, in the words of Section 12 of the Act, games of mere skill. The games on account of which they have been convicted were two forms of the dart game and what is known as the roll-up or table game. In one of the dart games there was a target divided into different coloured half-inch squares each numbered from 1 to 10. According to the judgment of the trial Court the squares in the horizontal rows were numbered 1 to 10 in sequence, but the vertical rows did not contain the numbers arranged in their sequence. It is not clear exactly how the target was arranged and the target is unfortunately no longer available, but I gather that the numbers were scattered about the board haphazard. The player was given 5 darts, and if he put one of these darts into one of the squares bearing the number on which he had staked he got twice his stake back. The target in the other dart game was the same except that it had only the numbers 1 to 6 and the player was given only 3 darts. The darts which were of varying weight and length, were thrown from a distance of about 12 feet in a bad light, and the numbers were not distinguishable except by persons with keen eye-sight. In the roll-up or table game the player rolled 2 resilient rubber balls up to the far end of the table where there are 13 shallow cups numbered 1 to 13. The sum of the numbers of the 2 cups in which the balls eventually settled was the player's score and it was open to him to bet that he would score 6 or under or 7 or 8 and over. If he succesfully staked on 6 and Under or on 8 and over, he presumably got twice his stake back, and if he successfully staked on 7 he got a higher reward. Emperor v. Ahmad Khan (1912) 34 All 96 the Allahabad High Court held that the ring game -was not a game of mere skill, a game of which the referring Sessions Judge had stated: With a great deal of practice it is possible that certain email amount of skill might be attained but practically it is a game of mere chance, and certainly, as presented to a number of holiday-making peasants, a simple game of chance and nothing else.

(2.) THE Calcutta High Court, on the other hand, had previously held ill Hari Singh v. Emperor (1907) 6 CLJ 708 that the general element in the ring game was one of skill; it is however not certain that the form of game in this case was the same as in the Allahabad case. The question has recently been considered at some length by the Calcutta High Court in Saligram Khetry v. Emperor 1938 Cal 8. The learned Judge, in coming to the conclusion that the dart game was a game of mere skill, remarked: A game of 'mere skill' should be taken to mean one in which a person playing it, as far as possible in any human affairs, has complete control over the result which he sets out to attain, provided he is sufficiently expert in performance.... The real test is: Is there any external thing or fortuitous circumstance which may interpose between the action of the player and the result to be obtained, and are the media or instruments of the operation all ascertained the moment the game begins.