1. Athiyannoor Panchayat represented by its Executive Officer filed a complaint before the judicial Second Class Magistrate, Neyyattinkara against the respondent under the second proviso to S.74 of the Kerala Panchayat Act read with R.26 of the Taxation and Appeal Rules for non-payment of licence fee for a private market for the years 1971-72 to 1979-80. It was taken to file as S.T. No. 328 of 1983. The Magistrate accepted the pleas of the respondent that (i) the prosecution is barred by limitation; (ii) quid pro quo has not been established; and (iii) the provisions of the Panchayat Act and Rules were not complied with before launching prosecution, and acquitted him. Complainant has come up in appeal.

2. In accepting the plea of limitation, the Magistrate made certain wrong assumptions. Ext. 17 was considered to be demand notice under R.13 of the Taxation and Appeal Rules whereas it is only a bill under R.8 thereof. For no valid reason it was held to be not a genuine document. In fact it was issued only in continuation of Ext. P.12 bill for Rs. 8,476.66 from 1971-72 to 1978-79 which is an admitted document. Ext.P.17 covers only an additional amount of Rs. 1,095/- as lic