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(2) (1947) 1. L. R. 26 Patna 460. (P.C.) of persons from the Federation. In the light of this situation, the construction adopted was that persons who normally could lawfully enter the colony, had to be proved to have a guilty mind i.e., actual or constructive knowledge of the existence of the prohibition against their entry before they could be held to have violated the terms of S. 6(2). It is in this context that the reference to "the luckless victim" has to be understood. The position under ss. 8 and 23 of the Act is, if we say so, just the reverse. Apart from the public policy and other matters underlying the legislation before us to which we shall advert later, s. 8(1) of the Act empowers the Central Government to impose a complete ban on the bringing of any gold into India, the act of "bringing" being understood in the sense indicated in the Explanation. When such a ban is imposed, the import or the bringing of gold into India could be effected only subject to the general or special permission of the Reserve Bank. Added to this, and this is of some significance, there is the provision in S. 24(1) of the Act which throws on the accused in a prosecution the burden of proving that he had the requisite permission, emphasising as it were that in the absence of a factual and existent permission to which he can refer, his act would be a violation of the law. In pursuance of the provision in s. 8 (1), Central Government published a notification on August 25, 1948 in which the terms of s. 8 (1) regarding the necessity of permission of the Reserve Bank to bring gold into India were repeated. On the issue of this notification the position was that everyone who "brought" gold into India, in the sense of the Explanation to s. 8 (1), was guilty of an offence, 'unless he was able to rely for his act on permission granted by the Reserve Bank. We therefore start with this : The bringing of gold into India is unlawful unless permitted by the Reserve Bank,-unlike as under the Singapore Ordinance, where an entry was not unlawful unless it was prohibited by an order made by the Minister. In the circumstances, therefore, mens rea, which was held to be an essential ingredient of the offence of a contravention of a Minister's order under the Ordinance, cannot obviously be deduced in the context of the reverse position obtaining under the Act. There was one further circumstance to which it is necessary to advert to appreciate the setting in which the question arose before the Privy Council. The charge against the appellant was that having entered Singapore on or about May 17, 1959 he remained there while prohibited by an order of the Minister under s. 9 and thereby contravened s. 6(2) of the Immigration Ordinance. At the trial it was proved that the order of the Minister was made on May 28, 1959 i.e., over 10 days after the appellant had entered the colony. It was proved that the Minister's order which prohibited the appellant, who was named in it, from entering Singapore was received by the Deputy Assistant Controller of Immigration on the day on which it was made and it was retained by that official with himself. The question of the materiality of the knowledge of the accused of the order prohibiting him from entering the colony came up for consideration in such a context. The further question as to when the order would, in law, become effective, relates to the second of the submissions made to us by the respondent and will be considered later. Reverting now to the question whether mens rea--in the sense of actual knowledge that the act done by the accused was contrary to the law-is requisite in respect of a contravention of s. 8 (1 ), starting with an initial prescription in favour of the need for mens rea, we have to ascertain whether the presumption is overborne by the language of the enactment, read in the light of the objects and purposes of the Act, and particularly whether the enforcement of the law and the attainment of its purpose would not be rendered futile in the event of such an ingredient being considered necessary.