The duty of the court to take judicial notice of laws in force and the misinterpretation of grounds for acquittal by the lower court.

1. The learned trial magistrate found that the accused in this case had put up a stone and cement structure across, and obstructing, a drain forming part of a public road situate and vested' in a Panchayat. If that be so, the accused was guilty of a breach of clause (a) of S.84 of the Kerala Panchayats Act, the construction not being permitted by the rules made under the Act. That section, so far as is material, says:

"84. Prohibition against obstruction in or over public roads, etc.- No person shall except as permitted by rules made under this Act and except in accordance with the conditions imposed by any licence made requisite by such rules

(a) build any wall or erect any fence or other obstruction or projection or make any encroachment whatsoever whether permanent or temporary, in or over any public road;

A breach of S.84 (a) is punishable under S.132 of the Act, read with the first item in Schedule III thereto, with a fine of Rs. 100/-. And the learned magistrate finding the accused guilty accordingly sentenced him to pay a fine of Rs. 25/-, in default to suffer simple imprisonment for one week. On appeal by the accused to the District Magistrate the latter acquitted him on three grounds:

(1) that the prosecution had not proved that S.84 and 132 of the Act had come into force;

(2) that the prosecution was bad for want of authorisation by the Panchayat under S.119 of the Act; and

(3) that the prosecution had failed to prove that it was the accused that had effected the construction.

This appeal against the acquittal brought under sub-section (3) of S.417 of the Criminal Procedure Code by the complainant, the Executive Officer of the Panchayat concerned, has come before us since it was thought that the decisions in Sreedharan v. State of Kerala 1969 KLT. 689, Pyli v. State of Kerala 1966 KLT. 102, Chandrasekharan v. State 1965 KLT. 638 and Executee Officer v. Bharathan 1967 KLT. 161 required reconsideration in the light of the decisions in State of Bombay v. F. N. Balsara AIR. 1951 SC. 318, Edward Mills Co. v. State of Ajmer AIR. 1955 SC. 25 and State v. Gopal Singh AIR. 1956 M. B. 138.

2. It is the first of the grounds stated by the learned District Magistrate that has been responsible for this case coming before us and we shall deal with it first. Sub-section (3) of S.1 of the Act provides that the Act "shall come into force on such date as the Government may, by notification in the Gazette, appoint". Also that "different dates may be appointed for different areas and for different provisions" of the Act. It is because the notification bringing the relevant provisions of the Act into force had not been tendered in evidence and duly proved at the trial that the learned District Magistrate held that the prosecution must fail.

3. The offence is alleged to have been committed on 3-5-1969. There is, in fact, a notification by the State Government dated the 1st December 1961 and published in the Kerala Gazette of the 12th December 1961 appointing the first day of January 1962 as the date on which S.84 and 132 and Schedule III among other provisions of the Act shall come into force. That notification is extracted in the publication of the Act commonly used in the courts, and a copy of the notification has been produced before us. The short question is whether a Court which under clause (1) of S.57 of the Indian Evidence Act is bound to take judicial notice of all laws in force in the territory of India should insist on a notification like the present bringing a law into force being produced and proved in the ordinary course, or should itself find out whether, or not the law has been brought into force by resort to the appropriate books or documents of reference.

4. It is to be noticed that the trial magistrate did apparently take judicial notice of the fact that the provisions of the Kerala Panchayats Act were a law in force, something which everybody concerned obviously knew no contention to the contrary was (or could have be