SETH BALKISHAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FINDLAY , J.C. 1. The present applicant Seth Balkishan possessed a gun license in Form No. 16. He was prosecuted under Section 19, Arms Act, in respect of his having gone armed with his gun in a marriage procession, and was convicted by the 1st Class Magistrate, Nagpur, being sentenced to a fine of Rs. 10. It would appear that the District Magistrate, Nagpur, had decided in 1925, that permission to carry guns in marriage processions should not in future be ordinarily granted. The Sessions Judge, Nagpur, dismissed the present applicant's appeal, holding that the taking of the gun in the marriage procession was a contravention of condition (4) of the license.

(2.) I have heard the counsel for the applicant and the Government Advocate. The condition in question reads as follows: Licensee...shall not go armed...otherwise than in good faith for the purpose of sport, protection, display and save where he is specially authorized in this behalf...by the District Magistrate, he shall not take any such arms to a fair, religious procession or other public assemblage.

(3.) AS regards the marriage procession being a religious procession I feel considerable doubt as to whether this can properly be termed as such. Doubtless marriage in the case of a Hindu is equally a religious ceremony as that of a marriage in, say, the Church of England, but to hold that the customary procession to the house of the bridegroom is therefore a religious procession seems to me to be fallacious. It would be almost equally correct were one to hold that a queue of boys or girls being taken from a school formally to service in Church forms a religious procession. I do not think that this is so. Moreover a penal enactment like the Arms Act must be construed in favour of the individual person where any doubt exists. Had the legislature intended to include "marriage procession" in condition (4) I should have expected to find a specific mention thereof in the license. A marriage procession from one point of view is very largely a matter of display and the first two lines of the license cover the use of a gun for the purpose of display. On I the whole, therefore, I am inclined to the view that a marriage procession, as ordinarily understood in this country, cannot be held to be necessarily a religious procession.