A.M. Bhattacharjee, J. - (1.) The only question involved in these three revisional applications is whether the offence for which the impugned prosecutions have been launched against the petitioners under Rule 11 of the Companies (Acceptance of Deposit) Rules, 1975 for the contravention of Rule 10 thereof, framed under Sec. 58A read with Sec. 542 of the Companies Act, 1956, are continuing offences within the meaning of the aforesaid Rule 11 and Sec. 472 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. If the answer is in the affirmative, the prosecutions are not barred by limitation and the Rules are to be discharged, that being the only ground urged in support of the Rules. But if the answer is in the negative, the prosecutions are undisputedly barred by limitation and the Rules are to be made absolute. Rule 10 of the Companies (Acceptance of Deposit) Rules. 1975 provides that "every Company to which these Rules apply shall on or before the 30th day of June of every year, file with the Registrar, a return in the Form annexed to these Rules". Rule 11, which is the omnibus penal provision for the contravention of any provision of these Rules, and not merely of Rule 10, provides that "if a Company or any other person contravenes any provision of these Rules for which no punishment is provided in the Act, the Company and every officer in default, or such other person, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees and where the contravention is a continuing one, with a further fine which may extend to fifty rupees for every day after the first during which the contravention continues". There is nothing in Rule 11 to indicate as to contravention of which provision of the Rules is to be treated as continuing contravention to attract the imposition of daily penalty during the continuation of the contravention. The Rule on the contrary indicates that a contravention of any of these Rule may only be an offence complete once for all punishable with fine extending to five hundred rupees and that only when any contravention of any of these Rules is a continuing one" in nature that the offence would also be continuing offence to be permissible with the further imposition of daily fine. The question, therefore, is whether contravention of Rule 10 would amount to a continuing offence.
(2.) Anything, whether a commission or an omission, is an offence if that is punishable under any law for the time being in force. That is how the expression "offence" has been defined in the General Clauses Act, the Penal Code as well as in the Code of Criminal Procedure. Therefore, when the relevant law not only penalises the omission or the default, but also provides that the penal liability would continue till the omission or the default would continue, the omission or default so made punishable would be a continuing offence. We have had the occasion to advert to this question in some details in Luxmi Printing Works Ltd. v/s. Assistant Registrar of Companies, Criminal Revisions No. 844 and No. 845 of 1984 disposed of to day - (subsequently reported : 94 CWN 412) where we have considered the point both on principle as well as on the authorities of the two decisions of the Supreme Court in Deokaran Nanshi ( : AIR 1973 SC 908) and in Bhagirath Kanoria (AIR 1964 SC 1688).
(3.) In Deokaran Nanshi (supra, at 909, paragraph 5), the Supreme Court has ruled that "continuing offence" "is one of these offences which arises out of a failure to obey or comply the liability for which continues until the rule or its requirement is observed". And the Supreme Court accordingly held the offence of failure to submit return within the period prescribed under the Mines Act, 1952 and the Regulation made thereunder, not to be a continuing offence (supra, at 910, paragraph 9) as the relevant law "does not lay down that the owner, manager etc. of the mine concerned would be guilty of an offence if he continues to carry on the mine without furnishing the return or that the offence continues until the requirement of the Regulation is complied with". In Bhagirath Kanoria (supra, at 1692, paragraph 18), it has been pointed out that even though belated compliance may not absolve the offender of the initial guilt, it would snap the recurrence when not only the non -compliance, but also its continuation is an offence.;