JUDGMENT

A.N. Mulla, J. - The District Board Muzaffarnagar prosecuted Noor Mohammad and eight others u/s 175 of the District Boards Act, 1920, for breach of Rule 7 of the bye-laws framed u/s 174(1) and Section 106 of the District Boards Act. These bye-laws were published in the UP Gazette of 23-1-1954, Part III at page 36.

2. Bye-law No. 7 reads as follows:

No person shall work or run a sugar factory within the rural area of the district unless and until he has been granted on payment of the requisite fee a licence for the same by the District Board and possess such a licence for the relevant period.

3. The word 'factory' defined in these bye-laws includes a flour mill, a cane crusher and other kinds of machineries. The charge against the opposite parties was that they were running factories in Jalalabad town which is a rural area appertaining to the District Board, Muzaffarnagar, in the year 1953-54 without taking out the required licences.

4. Two of the opposite parties Phul Chand and Bhullan Singh were prosecuted in the same case. In all eight complaints were filed.

5. The opposite parties admitted that they were running factories, but they contended that the factories were situate in Town Area Jalalabad and it was the Town Area committee of Jalalabad alone which could frame bye-laws demanding licensing fees from them. They further contended that bye-law No. 7 quoted above was void as u/s 93(3) District Boards Act, the District Board was not entitled to exercise any authority within the Town Area of Jalalabad.

6. The trial court came to the conclusion that Section 93(3) District Boards Act has divested the District Board of this authority which now vests in the Town Area Committee of Jalalabad in view of Section 26(a) of the UP Town Areas Act (Act II of 1914). It further held that the types of factories which the opposite parties were running came under the heading 'offensive trade' and the regulation of such offensive callings or trades was entirely within the control of the Town Area Committee. It, therefore, dismissed all the eight complaints of the District Board and acquitted the opposite parties.

7. The District Board went up in revision against these orders of acquittal and the Addl. District Magistrate who heard these revisions agreed with the view taken by the trial court and dismissed them. The District Board has now come up in revision before this Court and as the same points of law are involved in all these eight cases, this decision will govern all of them.

8. Three questions arise for determination in these cases. They are:

1. Is running of a flour mill etc. an offensive trade?

2. Does the word 'regulation' used in Section 26(a) UP Town Areas Act include the power of issuing a licence?

3. Does Section 93(3) of the District Boards Act amount to a divestmeit of authority of the District Board in favour of the Town Area Committee?

9. Question No. 1: The counsel for the District Board contended that running a flour mill and other factories which is the subject of charge in these cases is not an offensive trade, but a dangerous trade. In the alternative it was contended that it was born offensive and dangerous. Laying stress on the difference in the language of Section 26(a) of the UP Town Area Act, 1914 and Section 174(2)(k) of the District Boards Act, it was argued that the Town Area Committee can only regulate offensive trades and not those trades which are either dangerous or both offensive and dangerous, while the District Board can regulate dangerous and obnoxious trades also. It was also stressed that the bye-laws framed by the District Board were u/s 174(1) and Section 106 of the District Boards Act and not u/s 174(2)(k). I have not been impressed by these contentions. It is difficult to imagine a trade which is dangerous and obnoxious, but not offensive. No illustration of such a trade was given to me. Once a trade is found to be offensive, the power to regulate it is vested in the Town Area Committee u/s 26(a) of the