GANESH POTEDAR Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has been convicted under Rule 81(4), Defence of India Rules, and he has been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for four months plus a fine of Rs. 100 or in default rigorous imprisonment for four months more. The case against the petitioner was that on 9 April 1944, he had sold a tin of kerosene oil to a man called Baldeo Mandal for Rs. 14. It was alleged that the controlled price for a tin of kerosene oil on that date was Rs. 5-3-9 excluding cartage.

(2.) Therefore, the allegation against the petitioner was that he had sold a tin of kerosene oil at a price in excess of the controlled rate, and as such, had contravened the provisions of Rule 81, Defence of India Rules. The point urged before me on behalf of the petitioner is that the prosecution has failed to prove what the controlled rate of a tin of kerosene oil was on the relevant date, and that the prosecution had failed to give any evidence of the due compliance of the provisions of Rule 119, Defence of India Rules.

(3.) In my opinion, both these contentions raised on behalf of the petitioner are well founded and should be accepted. In Jagarnath Sah V/s. Emperor A.I.R. 1945 Pat. 307, to which I was a party, it has been laid down that it is essential for a prosecution under Rule 81(4), Defence of India Rules, to prove that the competent authority had determined the manner in which a notice of the order was to be published and that the order had been so published before the alleged offence had been committed by the accused.