Kanwar Singh vs Delhi Administration

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 24 of 1963

Decision Date: 5 August, 1964

Coram: J.R. Mudholkar, Raghubar Dayal, S.M. Sikri

In the matter titled Kanwar Singh versus Delhi Administration, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 5 August 1964. The opinion was authored by Justice J. R. Mudholkar, who sat on the bench together with Justices Raghubar Dayal and S. M. Sikri. The petitioner in the case was Kanwar Singh and the respondent was the Delhi Administration. The judgment bears the citation 1965 AIR 871 as well as 1965 SCR (1) 7, and it has been subsequently referenced in several reports, including R 1974 SC 1158 (4), RF 1991 SC 1289 (16). The statutory provision under consideration was Section 418(1) of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 (Act 66 of 1957), which deals with the impounding of cattle, the scope of delegation of authority, and the meaning of the term “abandoned.” In addition, the Court examined the extent of the defence of private property under Section 99 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

The factual backdrop involved a raiding party led by the Licensing Inspector of the Delhi Corporation that seized approximately twenty‑five to thirty stray cattle and was transporting them to a cattle pound when the three appellants, together with their friends, attacked the party with lathis, causing injuries to the members of the raiding party. The appellants contended that (i) no proper delegation of authority to impound cattle had been made in favour of the raiding party members because the Commissioner’s order required his personal presence to supervise the exercise of any delegated power; (ii) the cattle could not be classified as “abandoned” since they were not ownerless, and therefore could not be legally seized; and (iii) the injuries inflicted upon the raiding party were justified as an exercise of the appellants’ right of private defence of property. The Court held that the Commissioner’s order, which was placed before the Court along with the statement of case, clearly authorised licensing inspectors to impound stray cattle, and that Section 418(1) of the Act did not stipulate that the delegation of power must be made to specifically named individuals. Moreover, the Court observed that the personal presence of the Commissioner was not a condition for the delegation to be effective, despite the order indicating that the delegation was “subject to my supervision, control and revision.” Regarding the term “abandoned,” the Court explained that, within the context of Section 418(1), the word should be understood to mean “let loose” or “left unattended,” rather than “ownerless.” The Court emphasised its duty to interpret statutes in a manner that furthers the legislative intent, suppresses mischief, and advances the remedy, and it noted that the legislature did not intend to restrict impoundment only to ownerless cattle. The Court referred to Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes (11th edition), pages 221‑224 and 266, for this reasoning. Finally, the Court observed that Section 99 of the Indian Penal Code expressly provides that there is no right of private defence against an act which does not reasonably cause apprehension of death or grievous hurt, particularly when such an act is carried out or attempted under the direction of a public servant acting in the performance of official duties.

In this case, the Court observed that the protection extended even to acts which would not be strictly justified by law, but that the act in the present circumstances was fully justifiable, and consequently the appellants could not rely on any right of private defence, as recorded in paragraph [13B‑C]. The matter came before the Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction as Criminal Appeal No 24 of 1963, filed by special leave against the judgment and order dated 19 November 1962 of the Punjab High Court (Circuit Bench) at Delhi in Criminal Revision No 337‑D of 1962. Counsel for the appellants was instructed, while counsel for the respondent represented the State. The judgment was delivered by Justice Mudholkar. The appeal arose from the summary dismissal by the High Court of the appellants’ application for revision. Initially, eight persons were tried before the Assistant Sessions Judge, Delhi, for offences under sections 148, 332/149 and 333/149 of the Indian Penal Code. The trial judge acquitted five of the accused but convicted the three appellants of all three offences, imposing rigorous imprisonment for one year for the offence under section 148, rigorous imprisonment for two years for the offence under section 332/149, and rigorous imprisonment for three years for the offence under section 333/149, with all sentences ordered to run concurrently. On appeal, the Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi, set aside the convictions and sentences relating to sections 148 and 333/149, altered each appellant’s conviction under section 332/149 to a conviction under section 322 simpliciter, and awarded the same sentence as had previously been imposed for the offence under section 332/149. The prosecution case was that on 16 September 1961, Mukhtiar Singh, Licensing Inspector of the Delhi Municipal Corporation, organized a raiding party to capture stray cattle within the corporation’s limits. The party comprised Balbir Singh, Enforcement Inspector; H. K. Bhanot, Sanitary Inspector; Kishan Singh, Head Constable; three foot constables; and five cattle‑catchers. The party arrived at the neighbourhood of Mori Gate Chowk at about five a.m., rounded up approximately twenty‑five to thirty stray cattle, including buffaloes and cows, and proceeded to convey them to the Nigambodh Ghat cattle pound via Nicholson Road. While en route, the three appellants, each armed with a lathi, approached the party and threatened that unless the cattle were released they would face serious consequences. The members of the party identified themselves and the cattle‑catchers produced their identity cards, explaining that it was their duty to capture and impound stray cattle and that the appellants could obtain release of the animals only by following the procedural steps prescribed in the rules. This explanation aggravated the appellants, who then raised shouts.

When the shouts demanding the release of the cattle were heard, additional accused individuals arrived at the scene carrying lathis, joined the original appellants and together assaulted the members of the raiding party, inflicting injuries on them while forcibly releasing the cattle. As a consequence of that assault, Plaintiff‑in‑Person 2, Kishan Singh, suffered a grievous injury together with several simple injuries, and Plaintiffs‑in‑Person 14 Khem, 20 Padam Singh, 10 Iqbal Singh, 19 Nil Bahadur and 12 Ram Mehar each sustained simple injuries. Numerous persons who happened to be present at the location at that time observed the entire incident. Subsequently a police report was filed, a police investigation was conducted, and the appellants along with the other accused were brought before a First Class Magistrate. After conducting a preliminary enquiry, the magistrate ordered that the accused be committed to trial before the Court of Sessions. The judgment does not consider the defence of those accused who were ultimately acquitted. The appellants asserted that they had been moving their cattle after allowing them to graze and drink water, and that when they approached Mori Gate at approximately 4.30 a.m. a group employed by the Corporation confronted them, assaulted them and later transported them in a van to the police station. The appellants further contended that they acted in exercise of a private right to defend their property, a defence that was rejected by the lower courts. Before the Supreme Court, counsel for the appellants raised two principal submissions.

The first submission argued that the raiding party lacked authority to seize and impound the cattle, and the second submission maintained that, as owners of the cattle, the appellants possessed a right of private defence of their property and therefore their conviction under section 332 was legally invalid. The Court noted that the power to impound stray cattle is vested in section 418(1) of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 (66 of 1957), which provides: “If any horses, cattle or other quadruped animals or birds are kept on any premises in contravention of the provisions of section 417, or are found abandoned and roaming or tethered on any street or public place or on any land belonging to the Corporation, the Commissioner or any officer empowered by him may seize them and may cause them to be impounded or removed to such place as may be appointed by the Government or the Corporation for the purpose and the cost of seizure of these animals or birds and of impounding… or removing them and of feeding and watering them shall be recoverable by sale or by auction of those animals or birds.” The Court further indicated that the relevant proviso states: “Provided that any one claiming such animal or bird may, within seven days …”

In this case, the Court examined the provision of section 418(1) of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, which authorized the Commissioner or any officer empowered by him to seize and impound horses, cattle, other quadruped animals or birds that were kept in violation of section 417, or that were found abandoned, roaming, or tethered on a street, public place, or any land belonging to the Corporation. The provision further allowed that a person claiming such an animal could, within seven days of the seizure, obtain its release by paying all expenses incurred by the Commissioner in seizing, impounding or removing the animal and in feeding and watering it, and by producing a licence issued under section 417. The Court noted that the power under this section could be delegated by the Commissioner. The counsel for the petitioner argued that delegation of this power had not been established in the present case. The Court observed that the order of the Commissioner delegating the power under section 418(1) was not part of the official record, but it had been placed before the Court together with the statement of the case. The order read: “In exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 491 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, I hereby direct that the power conferred on me under section 418(1) of the said Act shall, subject to my supervision, control and revision, be exercised also by the Municipal employees mentioned in column 3 of the schedule given below to the extent stated in column 4 of the schedule.” The order was signed by P. R. Nayak, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, and was followed by a schedule indicating that the nature of the delegated power was “seizure of certain animals”, the designation of the officers was “Licensing Inspectors”, and the scope was limited to “stray cattle only”.

The counsel for the petitioner maintained that the delegation was ineffective because, in his view, it amounted to a general delegation of power and failed to specify the names of individual persons to whom the power was delegated. The Court examined the schedule attached to the order and found that it specifically delegated the power of seizure of certain animals and clearly indicated the limitation “in respect of stray cattle only”. The Court held that the wording of section 418(1) did not require the Commissioner to name the individual officers; it required only that the officers to whom the power was delegated be identified, which the schedule had accomplished. The Court further observed that section 491 permitted delegation to any municipal officer or employee, and therefore a specific individual authorisation was not mandatory. Regarding the phrase in the delegation order that the power would be exercised “subject to my supervision, control and revision”, the Court interpreted that language as indicating that the delegation was not absolute and remained under the overall authority of the Commissioner, not as a requirement that the Commissioner be physically present at the spot where the power was exercised. Consequently, the Court concluded that the delegation of power under section 418(1) was valid and effective.

In the present matter, the Court examined whether the delegation of authority to municipal employees required the Commissioner to be physically present whenever those employees exercised the delegated power. The respondent’s counsel, identified as Mr Kohli, argued forcefully that the cattle could not properly be described as “abandoned” because the owners – the appellants – were actually standing near the animals at the time the animals were rounded up. The Court noted, however, that this argument conflicted with the consistent findings of each lower court, which recorded that the rounding‑up operation lasted only half an hour and that the owners first arrived on the scene after the cattle had already been gathered and were in the process of being taken to the cattle pound. The Court held that such a finding of the lower tribunals could not be set aside. The respondent further submitted a more serious objection, contending that under section 418 of the Delhi Corporation Act the Corporation is authorised to impound only cattle that are either ownerless or tethered on a street, public place, or land belonging to the Corporation. The Court observed that the animals in the present case were not tethered on any such place, and therefore the respondent argued that the seizure was unlawful. The Court recorded these factual and legal contentions for consideration and proceeded to examine the meaning of the term “abandoned” as used in the statute.

To support his contention that “abandoned” implies a complete relinquishment of ownership, Mr Kohli referred the Court to definitions found in Wharton’s Law Lexicon and the Oxford English Dictionary. He cited Wharton’s description of “abandoned” as “a thing banned or denounced as forfeited or lost, whence to abandon, desert, or forsake as lost and gone.” He also cited the Oxford English Dictionary, volume 1, which defines the term as “to let go, give up, renounce, leave off; to cease to hold, use or practise.” In addition, the Oxford Dictionary offers the meaning “to let loose; to set free; to liberate.” Mr Kohli pointed out that several other meanings appear in both the Oxford Dictionary and Wharton’s Law Lexicon, and that Jowitt’s The Dictionary of English Law, under the entry “abandonment,” provides case examples showing that different statutes have given the word different meanings. From these authorities, the respondent concluded that the meaning attached to “abandoned” must depend on the context in which it occurs. The Court agreed that the context of section 418(1) is decisive and held that, in that provision, “abandoned” is best understood as “let loose” in the sense of being “left unattended,” and not as meaning “ownerless.” The Court affirmed that it is the duty of the judiciary, when construing a statute, to give effect to the intention of the legislature. Accordingly, if applying a literal or dictionary meaning of a word in a penal provision would frustrate the legislative purpose of suppressing a mischief, the Court may depart from that literal meaning and adopt an interpretation that advances the remedial aim and suppresses the mischief. The Court referred to Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 11th edition, pages 221‑224 and 266, for support of this principle. In the Act before the Court, the legislature, therefore, did not intend the word “abandoned” to require ownerlessness, a conclusion that the Court reached after a careful analysis of the language, the context, and the purpose of the statute.

In interpreting the term “abandoned,” the Court observed that the legislature did not mean to require that the cattle be without any owner. This intention is reflected in the proviso to sub‑section (1) of Section 418, which provides that any person who claims an animal that has been impounded under that sub‑section may, within seven days of the seizure, obtain the animal’s release by satisfying prescribed conditions. Such a claim, the Court noted, can be made only by a person who is either the rightful owner of the impounded animal or a person who possesses at least custodial control over it. Accordingly, the Court could not accept the first argument advanced by counsel for the petitioner, which suggested that the word “abandoned” meant that the animal must be ownerless. Having determined that the raiding party was lawfully entitled to impound the cattle, the Court held that no issue of private defence arose. Section 99 of the Indian Penal Code expressly states that there is no right of private defence against an act that does not reasonably create a fear of death or serious injury when the act is performed, or attempted, by a public servant acting in good faith under the colour of official authority. The provision further explains that protective exemption may extend even to acts that are not strictly justified by law, but in the present case the act of impounding the cattle was fully justified under the law. Consequently, the second contention raised by the petitioner’s counsel was also found to lack merit. For these reasons, the Court dismissed the appeal, confirming the lower court’s order.