EMPEROR Vs. SANJIVA SHIVAPA BADER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this case we agree with the District Magistrate that the Conviction is unsustainable. All that the accused did was to use in a licensed tonga a licensed pony, though the licensed pony did not bear the number of the tonga. The accused has been convicted under Section 2 of the Bombay Public Conveyances Act. The learned Magistrate who convicted the accused appears to have thought that to ply a tonga with a pony, licensed generally but not licensed for that particular tonga, fell within the words of Section 2, which prohibits the keeping or letting for hire of any public conveyance without the license referred to in the section. But there is no provision of the Act which requires that a particular pony or ponies should be yoked to a particular tonga or that the ponies used should be branded with, the number of a particular tonga. Under Section 1 of the Act the:"land conveyance" is defined as the carriage by whatever number of horses or other animals it may be drawn. IN Emperor v. Hari Tanaji 20 INd. Cas 618 the accused, who had yoked an unlicensed pony to a licensed conveyance and plied the conveyance for hire, was held to be punishable under Section 2 of the Act; but that was because, in the words of the judgment, the accused has plied his tonga with another pony which was not licensed, that is, with motive power which has not been approved." IN this case the motive power had been approved, and there is nothing in the Act or the rules thereunder which required the accused to restrict the use of a licenced pony to any particular conveyance.

(2.) WE, therefore, set aside the conviction, direct that the accused be acquitted and discharged and that the fine, if paid, be refunded to him.