Chakravartti, J. - (1.) The petitioner hag been convicted under Section 386 (i) (c), read with Section 488, Calcutta Municipal Act, for having kept some cattle at NOS. 22A and 22B, Southern Avenue, without having a license therefor. The sentence passed upon him is the maximum provided for in the section, viz., a fine of Rs. 250, but the learned Magistrate added that in default of payment he was to undergo simple imprisonment for 40 days. It appears that after recording the conviction the Magistrate purported to proceed under Section 388, Criminal P. C., but as the petitioner was not prepared to take advantage of the option provided for in that section, the learned Magistrate was prepared to send him to jail. But shortly thereafter a brother of his appeared and offered bail and on that bail he was released.
(2.) It is not disputed that the petitioner did keep a few heads of cattle at the premises concerned and that at the relevant time he did not hold any license which would authorise him to use the place for keeping cattle. Even in the petition to this Court it has not been claimed that the petitioner held any license at the time or that the finding that he wag keeping cattle at Nos. 22A and 22B, Southern Avenue, is not correct, in fact, at the trial he pleaded guilty. What was urged in support of the Rule were only certain legal objections in various forms.
(3.) The first ground taken related to the circumstance that the trial of the petitioner took place near the Kalighat Park in a motor van. It appears that on that day, one of the Municipal Magistrates was out in the streets of Calcutta, holding a mobile Court and it was before that Court that the petitioner was produced for his trial. Mr. Eoy, who appears on behalf of the petitioner, contended that the Kalighat Park had not been prescribed as a place where a Municipal Magistrate might sit for the despatch of business and that in the absence of a proper Notification to that effect under Section 531, Calcutta Municipal Act, the proceeding in which the petitioner had been convicted was utterly void.;