The central legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of obtaining a license for operating a private market under the Local Boards Act, and the consequences of failing to comply with this requirement.

Kuppuswami Ayyar, J.

1. The petitioner has been convicted of an offence punishable under Section 207 read with Schedule 8 and Section 171, Local Boards Act, and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 51 by the Joint Magistrate of Madanapalle. On appeal the learned Sessions Judge of Chittoor confirmed the conviction and sentence. The prosecution case was that the petitioner was having a private market within the limits of the Panchayat Board of Punganur without having a license as required by Section 171, Local Boards Act. That petitioner did not take out a license is admitted. But what is stated for him is that he has been having this private market for a number of years without taking out a license and that he has been having it from 1880 and consequently he was not bound to take out a license. It is further stated that he was in possession of this market only as receiver appointed in the suit by the civil Court and consequently the prosecution is invalid without the sanction of the Court which has appointed him receiver. Section 171 of the Act runs thus:

No person shall open a slew private market or continue to keep open a private market unless he obtains from the panchayat a licence to do so.

Under Section 174 of the Act when a licence granted under Section 171 does not permit the levy of any fees, it shall be granted free of charge but when such permission is given, a fee not exceeding 15 per centum of the gross income of the owner from the market in the preceding year shall be charged by the panchayat for such license. What is stated for the petitioner is that if he is to take out a license he will have to pay a fee not exceeding 15 per cent. of the gross income, that he has not been paying that fee all along, that the Local Board authorities permitted him to take the, entire income from the market from as early as 1880, and, therefore, he was not bound to pay any fees. The Local Boards Act was passed long subsequent to the opening of this market. It was therefore a market which was being continued after the new Act came into operation and under Section 171 of the Act, even old private markets which are continued after the Act came into force could be had only after taking out a license. I am not able to see anything in Exs. 2, 3 or 4 the letters written by the President of the Local Boards to the petitioners predecessor to indicate that the petitioner was to be exempt from fees leviable under later legislation. He requested the Local Board not to open any other private market in the same place and they agreed to do so on condition that he charged only the fees mentioned in the letter of the President of the Local Board. Inasmuch as admittedly the petitioner had not taken out a license and as the market is a private one and it is one continued after the Act came into force, the conviction has to be upheld. The sentence is not excessive.

2. With regard to the argument that the sanction of the Court which appointed the petitioner as receiver has not been taken it is not a universal rule of law that in respect of all prosecutions against receivers the permission of the Courts which appointed them as receivers should be taken. This was pointed out in Nagendranath v. Jogendranath 15 Ind.Cas. 491. It is not the petitioners case that he wrote to the Court and he was asked by the Court not to take out a license. Nor did the Court tell him at any time that he can keep the market without a license. If in respect of the act done by him under the orders of the Court he is prosecuted there will be some justification for considering the question whether it would be proper to prosecute him without first intimating to the Court under whose orders he was acting. If the law required any person having a private market to take out a license, and if the receiver in respect of the property which formed part of the estate vesting in him had to take out a license it was his duty as receiver appointed by the Court to take out a license; and his proper c