Limitation for prosecution for offence u/s 175.

Abdul Razack was charged with having committed an offence falling under sections 175 and 313 of the District Municipalities Act. He was tried by the Judicial Sub-Magistrate of Madurai who held that the prosecution was barred by limitation. Since I propose to confine myself to only this question, the other conclusions reached by the learned Magistrate that in addition to the above defect there was no valid sanction for the prosecution and further that the case did not fall within the scope of section 175 of the District Municipalities Act, are not being dealt with herein. On the acquittal of the accused, Special Leave to appeal was applied for and granted by this Court. In this appeal the correctness of the view taken by the learned Magistrate in acquitting the accused is being canvassed.

For a consideration of the question of limitation, it would be sufficient to state that the accused purported to sell his land in certain plots and those sales had been effected on nth September, 1958. Sanction to prosecute is said to have been granted on 13th May, 1959 and the prosecution itself was launched only on 29th July, 1959.

Section 347 of the District Municipalities Act provides that no person shall be tried lor any offence against the provisions of the Act except on the complaint of a proper authority made within three months of the commission of the offence.

There is a proviso to this section which singles out “failure to take out a licence, obtain permission or secure registration under this Act shall, for the purposes of this section, be deemed a continuing offence” and normally in such cases complaint may be made at any time within twelve months from the commencement of the offence. It would accordingly appear from the main part of section 347. that the prosecution should be launched against a person offending against the provisions of the Act within three months of the commission of the offence, that is to say, the complaint itself should be laid before the Court competent to deal with the trial of such offences within that period. Prima facie it does not appear that the complaint in this case was so laid. If the sale of the property in violation of the specific requirements of section 175 of the Act, to which I shall presently refer, is the offence complained of and that was effected on 11th September, 1958, the filing of the complaint some time in July, 1959, is obviously hopelessly out of time. Learned counsel, however, seeks to get over this bar of limitation by relying upon the proviso, which I have referred to, and to make out that the present offence is one of a continuing type, in the case of which the period of limitation is twelve months from the commencement of the offence.

I am unable to accept this contention. The main body of section 347 provides what may be called the normal period of limitation for a variety of offences against the provisions of the Act. What the proviso does is to take out some types of offences and provide a longer period of limitation in such cases. A careful scrutiny of this proviso indicates that only three such types of offences are treated as continuing offences for the purpose of this section. They are plainly listed out in the proviso and unless the learned counsel can establish that the offence of non-compliance with the provisions of section 175 is an offence which would come within the categories mentioned in the proviso, he cannot, with any substance, plead that it is a continuing offence entitiling him to depend upon the longer period of limitation. In order to understand, therefore, whether the alleged offence can be brought within the scope of this proviso the nature of the offence contemplated by section 175 of the Act has now to be examin-

Section 175, in so far as it is material for our purpose, states thus:

“If the owner of any land............sells............such land or any portion or portions of the same as sites for the construction of buildings, he shall..........