EMPEROR Vs. NATHALAL VANMALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the Government of Bombay against the acquittal of the accused in appeal by the Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad of offences under Sections 4 and 5 of the Bombay Prevention of Gambling Act, 1887, for which they had been convicted and sentenced by the trial Magistrate.

(2.) ACCUSED Nos. 1 and 2 are partners in business. ACCUSED No.3 is their servant, and the other accused are constituents. On April 18, 1936, the police raided the business premises of accused Nos. 1 and 2, which premises are situate opposite the American Cotton Exchange of Ahmedabad. In the raid certain books and documents were seized, and it is suggested that those books and documents are instruments of gaming, and, therefore, since the raid took place under Section 6 of the Act, a presumption arises under Section 7 that the premises raided were used as a common gaming-house. The documents seized, however, are not on the face of them instruments of gaming, and the learned Government Pleader, therefore, relies particularly on the words which were added to Section 7 by an amendment in 1936.

(3.) APART from that evidence, there is really no evidence of pure gambling in American futures. There is a great deal of evidence that the accused were doing business in cotton, both in futures and in options, and it is suggested, and indeed admitted, that they never in fact gave or took delivery of any bales of cotton ; but the rules of the American Cotton Exchange, which the accused say that they operate under, prohibit a transaction where no delivery is given or contemplated, and the cases show that if delivery is given or contemplated, the transaction is not a purely gambling transaction, although one knows very well that in practice in most of these cases dealing in futures and options no delivery is in point of fact ever taken or contemplated.