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7. The High Court has held that under S. 8 as it now stands any magistrate of the First Class can try an offence under S. 5 and the plea that the said offence has been committed outside the territorial jurisdiction of the magistrate cannot be pleaded in such a case. According to this view the non-obstante clause has the result of making the provisions of S. 177 of the Code inapplicable, and if that be so any magistrate specified in the Section would have jurisdiction to try the offence under S. 5. In coming to this conclusion the High Court has been very much influenced by the consideration that, unless S. 8 receives the construction which it accepted, offences under S. 5 would go unpunished; and it thought that it would be unreasonable to hold that the Legislature having created an offence by S. 5 read with S. 4(b) did not provide for any machinery to punish the said offence .If no machinery is provided for the trial of the offences created by S. 5, S. 5 and even S. 4(b) of the Act would become otiose. Prima facie there is force in this point of view. The appellant's argument, however, is that in assessing the importance or significance of this consideration it would be material to consider the scheme of the Act and to determine the object which the Legislature had in mind in enacting S. 8 and S. 8A by the amending Act. The appellant relies on the rule of harmonious construction and suggests that Ss. 8 and 8A should be read together in ascertaining the effect of the non-obstante clause used in both of them. It is urged that the Section which the court in construing is a penal Section and so even if it is capable of two constructions, one accepted by the High Court and the other for which he contends, the court must accept the construction which is more favourable to the accused. That in brief is the effect of the argument.

11. Let us now construe S. 8. The non-obstante clause in S. 8 which is identical with the clause under S. 8A should under the rule of harmonious construction ordinarily bear the same meaning. If the non-obstante clause in S. 8A does not have the effect of overriding the provisions of S. 177 of the Code there is no reason why the said result should necessarily follow from the same non-obstante clause in S. 8. In our opinion the two non- obstante clauses were really intended to serve a similar purpose. We have already shown that the non-obstante clause of S. 8A was intended to exclude the jurisdiction of the Second and the Third Class Magistrates to try the offences under Ss. 6 and 7; a similar object was intended to be achieved by the non-obstante clause in S. 8. As soon as the offence under S. 5 was made punishable by the amending Act with seven year's rigorous imprisonment and fine it became triable by a Court of Session under Schedule II of the Code; and by S. 8 the Legislature wanted to enact that the said offence may be tried by any court of Presidency Magistrate or a magistrate of First Class. We are, therefore, disposed to take the view that the object of the Legislature in enacting S. 8 by the amending Act was not to depart from the provisions of S. 177 of the Code but to modify the effect of Schedule II under which offences under S. 5 were triable by a court of Session and provided that they may be tried by the courts specified in S. 8. It is undoubtedly true that on this construction the Act does not seem to have provided for the trial and punishment of offences under S. 5; but that is equally true about some of the offences punishable under S. 7; and so this consideration cannot override the ordinary rule of harmonious construction. We can only add it may be possible to speculate but it is unnecessary to consider and decide why the Legislature has left this lacuna in the Act. We would accordingly hold that the High Court was in error in reversing the finding of the trial magistrate that he had no jurisdiction to try the case. In view of this conclusion it is unnecessary to decide whether the impugned Sections of the Act are intra vires or not.

17. But the learned Counsel for the appellant advances a subtle argument, first to create an ambiguity in S. 8 where there is none and then by a comparison of the terms of the said Section with those in other Sections of the Act to create a lacuna in the interest of, what he calls, a harmonious construction. As the argument turns upon the said Sections, I shall read them :

S.6 :
"Whoever performs, conduces or abets any bigamous marriage in this Province shall, on conviction, be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months or with fine or with both, unless he proves that he had reason to believe that the marriage was not a bigamous marriage."

to be astute to find out ways in which the object of an Act of the Legislature may be defeated."

This rule enunciated the well-settled principle that, when one part of a statute conveys a clear meaning, it is not permissible to construe the same with reference to another part for the purpose of controlling or diminishing the efficacy of the first part. The practical application of the said rule of construction to the instant case may be stated thus : This case does not raise the question of validity of Ss. 6, 7 or 8A of the Act. Sections 4, 5 and 8, as I have already indicated, can be given without doing violence to the language a harmonious construction and be sustained without attributing any incongruity to the Legislature. On the other hand, if the argument of the appellant be accepted, it would be to introduce a discordant note in the latter group of Sections viz., Ss. 4, 5 and 8 so as to make the substantive Section otiose. It would be a vain attempt to discover a common thread of interpretation between the two groups of Sections which can be worked out independently without any disharmony.