PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. KUZIKKAL KRISHNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are appeals preferred by the Government from the judgment of the learned Joint Magistrate of Pollachi in C.A. Nos. 14 to 21 of 1937. Those appeals were from the decisions of the Stationary Sub-Magistrate of Pollachi, who convicted several persons of an offence under Section 16 of the Motor Vehicles Act for violating Rule 30(a)(1)(i) of the Madras Motor Vehicles Rules. The facts in each case were that lorries had been engaged at Calicut to deliver bags of grain at Pollachi. In some cases the owners of the lorries alone were prosecuted; in other cases both the owners and the drivers were prosecuted. They were all convicted by the learned Stationary SUD-Magistrate. The owners were sentenced to fines of Rs. 50 and the drivers to fines of Rs. 20. On appeal the learned Joint Magistrate found it established that these lorries had been engaged for hire at Calicut and he said it was not disputed that the owners of them had not obtained permits in form G as required by Rule 30 (a)(1)(i) of the Madras Motor Vehicles Rules but the learned Joint Magistrate held that the convictions were bad because there had been no plying for hire in the district of Coimbatore of which Pollachi is a division. The learned Joint Magistrate says that the lorries were plying for hire only at Calicut and there was no plying for hire in Pollachi. He noticed the words in Rule 30 that: No motor vehicle shall be let or plied for hire in any local are a or along any public road in the Presidency of Madras.

(2.) But he said that he did not know exactly what was the meaning of the words "let for hire". He held that letting for hire must be one definite and localised act and that in the present cases even if the charge was that the vehicles were let for hire, the letting had been done and completed at Calicut and therefore neither the police nor the magistracy of Pollachi had any jurisdiction in respect of these cases.

(3.) The learned Joint Magistrate I think has erred in this discussion of Rule 30(a). The wording is that: No motor vehicle shall be let or plied for hire in any local area or along any public road in the Presidency of Madras, unless the registered owner of such vehicle has obtained a special permit...in Form G.