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Judgment
Kuppuswami Ayyar, J.—These three revision petitions arise out of prosecutions under the District Municipalities Act. The area in which
these offences are said to have been committed is no doubt not a portion of the Municipal area but a portion of the Local Board area. The
provisions of the District Municipalities Act were extended to this area. The petitioners in these three cases have been prosecuted in C.C. No.
1851 of 1945 (Cr. R.C. No. 1097 of 1945), and C.C. No. 1852 of 1945 (Cr. R.C. No. 1098 of 1945) and C.C. No. 2113 of 1945 (Cr. R.C.
No. 411 of 1946) for offences punishable u/s 199 read with Section 317 of the Madras District Municipalities Act in the former two cases and in
the third case for offences punishable under Sections 205 and 317 of the same Act. These offences relate to default with regard to the obtaining of
sanction for erecting buildings. When the Local Government at the request of the Panchayat Board of Dharmapuri extended the provisions of the
District Municipalities Act to the area under the control of the Panchayat Board, a notification order was issued u/s 206 of the Madras Local
Boards Act which runs thus:
No. 623.-In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 206 of the Madras Local Boards Act, 1920 (Madras Act XIV of 1920) the
Government of Madras are hereby pleased at the request of the Dharmapuri Panchayat and of the Dharmapuri District Board to extend to the
Dharmapuri village, the following provisions of the Madras District Municipalities Act, 1020 (Madras Act V of 1920) and the rules framed
thereunder: (i) Chapter IX--Streets and Chapter X--Buildings Regulations; (ii) so much of Sections 303(3), 313, 317 and 338, and Schedules VII
and VIII as relate to Chapters IX and X aforesaid; and (iii) Clauses (4), (11). (24) and (29) of Section 3, Clauses (8) and (10) of Section 306
read with Section 203-A of the Madras Local Boards Act, 1920, and Section 344 of the Madras District Municipalities Act, 1920, subject to the
modification that in the said provision, all references to Municipal Council'','' Council,'' '' Municipal'' and '' Municipality '' shall be construed as
references Panchayat, all references to '' Chairman '','' Executive authority '' as references to President of the Panchayat and the reference to ''
Schedule IV'' in Section 344 as a reference to Schedule IV of the Madras Local Boards Act, 1920.
Unfortunately the provision of Section 347 of the District Municipalities Act was not included in this notification with the result that the provision as
regards the person who is to prosecute any such offences is not included and that there is no machinery for starting these prosecutions. It is
therefore contended that in the absence of such a provision for starting prosecutions in such cases these prosecutions must fail, since it can be
started only by a person specifically mentioned. On the other side it is argued that these prosecutions must have been construed as prosecutions
under the Local Boards Act. It is not a prosecution under the provisions of the Local Boards Act. It is only a case where the provisions of the
District Municipalities Act are extended to the Local Board area and the prosecution is one under the District Municipalities Act and the provision
providing the machinery by which the prosecution is to be started is not there. The lacuna of such a provision would not entitle the Local Board to
act in the way in which it did.'' This is not a case in which it can be said that the prosecution under the Local Boards Act is a prosecution under the
District Municipalities Act in respect of a portion of the Local Board area to which this Act is extended.
Consequently all the three petitions are allowed and it is found that the prosecution cannot be maintained until the provisions of Section 347 are
applied to this Local Board area with the necessary amendments as regards the persons who are to start the prosecutions. It will be open to the
Local Government to take the necessary steps to remedy the defect in future.