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Judgment
Venkatadri, J.—An interesting question of law arises in this revision petition relating to the interpretation of Section 26 of the Madras
Panchayats Act, 1958. Section 26(a) of the Act says:
Subject to the provisions of Section 28, a member shall cease to hold office as such if he:
(a) is sentenced by a criminal Court to such punishment and for such offence as is described in Sub-section (1) of Section 25;
Section 25(1) is in the following terms:
A person who has been sentenced by a criminal Court to imprisonment for any offence involving moral delinquency (such sentence not having been
reversed), shall be disqualified for election as a member.
The Petitioner was elected as president of the Villuppanur panchayat in 1958. There was a civil proceeding, wherein a receiver was appointed
for harvesting standing crops. After the crops were harvested, the paddy was stored and time was given to the judgment-debtor in that proceeding
for payment of the decree amount. On the appointed day, when the money was not paid, the receiver, with the help of police, was taking steps to
remove the paddy from the place where it was stored. It was at that stage the villagers appear to have prevented the receiver from discharging his
duties. The Petitioner also happened to be in that crowd. There were criminal proceedings against the villagers including the president, for unlawful
assembly. When the matter went on appeal, the president of the panchayat was convicted and sentenced till the rising of the Court. The learned
Sessions Judge of Ramanathapuram at Madurai made the following observation:
He (the Petitioner) had no personal interest in the matter and he has joined the unlawful assembly of the other accused in protesting against the
carrying away of the paddy as he was the President of the local Panchayat interested in the other accused.
In the order, out of which this revision petition arises, the learned District Munsif held that the Petitioner had become disqualified u/s 26(a) of the
Madras Panchayats Act, and that, by virtue of such disqualification, he had ceased to hold office as a member of the panchayat.
The question for consideration in this revision petition is whether the Petitioner is disqualified u/s 26(a) of the Act; in other words, whether the
imprisonment till the rising of the Court would involve any moral delinquency?
In general, moral turpitude is anything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty, or good morals. Moral turpitude is defined in Words and
Phrases, volume XXVII page 541 as an act of baseness, vileness or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes to his fellowmen
or to society in general, contrary to the accepted and customary rule of right and duty between man and man. Moral delinquency is rather a vague
term and it may have different meanings in different contexts. In Baleshwar Singh Vs. District Magistrate and Collector, Banaras and Others, a
learned Judge of the Allahabad High Court observed;
The expression ''moral turpitude'' is not defined anywhere. But it means anything done contrary to justice, honesty, modesty or good morals. It
implies depravity and wickedness of character, or disposition of the person charged with the particular conduct. Every false statement made by a
person may not be moral turpitude, but it would be so if it discloses vileness or depravity in the doing of any private and social duty which a person
owes to his fellowmen or to the society in general.
In Durga Singh Vs. The State of Punjab, , a constable of the Punjab police force was found heavily drunk on a roadside and abusing passers-by.
He was convicted by a magistrate and he was also dismissed from service by the department. The question was whether the action of the
constable involved any moral turpitude. The learned Judge of the Punjab High Court held, that the conviction involved moral turpitude. In Mangali
Vs. Chhakki Lal and Others, the Allahabad High Court observed:
From consideration of the dictionary meaning of the words ''moral'' and ''turpitude'' as well as the real ratio decidendi of the cases the principle
which emerges appear to be that the question whether a certain offence involves moral turpitude or not will necessarily depend on the
circumstances in which the offence is committed. It is not every punishable act that can be considered to be an offence involving moral turpitude.
Had that been so, the qualification ''involving moral turpitude'' would not have been used by the Legislature and it would have disqualified every
person who had been convicted of any offence. The tests which should ordinarily be applied for judging whether a certain offence does or does
not involve moral turpitude appear to be : (1) whether the act leading to a conviction was such as could shock the moral conscience of society in
general, (2) whether the motive which led to the act was a base one and (3) whether on account of the act having been committed the perpetrator
could be considered to be of a depraved character or a person who was to be looked down upon by the society.
Anantanarayanan J., in Chelladurai v. Sornam ILR (1964) Mad. 154, 156 made the following observation:
...it is certainly difficult to define what is an offence involving moral delinquency and when an offence does not involve that element.... In my view,
applying the approach of negative exclusion, which may be fruitful in such cases, it is clear enough that all technical and formal offences, and
offences not involving mens rea would be automatically excluded. Next, an offence like a rash and negligent act causing the death of a person, may
be presumably excluded, for though rashness and negligence are states of mind, they do not involve a guilty intention, and are not states of mind
per se transgressing the moral law.... After a careful consideration of this aspect, I am inclined to feel that any grave criminal offence, which
involves an element of guilty knowledge, and which thus transgresses the majesty of the law of crimes, will necessarily involve also an element of
moral delinquency because of its anti-social content.
In Sornam v. Dt. Munsif and Election Tribunal (1963) 76 L.W. 857 where the election of a member to a panchayat and also to the
presidentship thereof was questioned on the ground that he had been convicted of an offence involving moral turpitude, in that he was one of sixty-
seven persons tried for various offences of criminal conspiracy to set fire and blow up railway bridges and the like and with the violation of the
Explosive Substances Act for the purpose indicated, Srinivasan J., held that the allegation of disqualification was made out as those offences must
be regarded as offences involving moral delinquency.
Lord Denning, in his book The Changing Law, has observed at page 112 as follows:
In order to hold a person individually responsible for his crime, so as to be liable to punishment it is obviously necessary that he should have a guilty
mind.
In Mens Rea in Statutory Offences by J. LL. J. Edwards, it is stated at page 249:
Where all that is meant is that the accused''s conduct must be a voluntary expression of his will, this is a basic principle which runs throughout the
whole field of criminal liability, whether the crime originated at common law or by statutory enactment, and whether the crime is one of absolute
prohibition or one involving proof of a guilty mind. All that it involves is the principle that the act must be attributable to the accused, i.e., it must
have been done intentionally and not accidentally.
After reviewing all the authorities I am of opinion that neither the conviction nor the punishment of the president (Petitioner) involves any moral
delinquency, and as the learned Sessions Judge himself observed the Petitioner had no personal interest in the matter and that he joined the
unlawful assembly of the other accused in protesting against the carrying away of the paddy, as he was the President of the local Panchayat
interested in the other accused. Therefore, in the words of LORD DENNING, the president was not individually responsible for his crime, as he
had no guilty mind. Since he had not the mens rea, his action could not be held to involve any moral delinquency, and the Petitioner would not,
therefore, become disqualified u/s 26(a) of the Act.
The question whether imprisonment till the rising of the Court is imprisonment or not does not arise, as a Bench of this Court has categorically
held in Muthu Nadar, In re ILR (1945) Mad. 529 that a direction by the Court that a person should be confined in the Court premises till the
Court rose constituted imprisonment within the meaning of the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. Learned Counsel also contended
that the Petitioner was elected under the Madras Village Panchayats Act, 1950 and he was not disqualified, as, u/s 16 of that Act, he should have
been sentenced for more than six months. But that question does not arise, since I have come to the conclusion that the Petitioner did not commit
any offence involving moral delinquency.
The civil revision petition is, accordingly allowed. But there will be no order as to costs.