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12] Section 2(3) of the Forest Act defines forest offence as under :

"Forest offence" means an offence punishable under this Act or under any rule made thereunder;

It is clear that forest offence is an offence punishable under the Forest Act or under any rule made under the Forest Act. The contravention of Rule 31 regarding transportation of forest- produce, without transit pass, we have just seen, has been made an offence punishable with maximum imprisonment of one year and/or fine of Rs.2,000/- under Rule 82 of the Rules, 2014. Therefore, the transportation of the forest-produce, which has been done in the present case sans transit pass by the seized vehicles, also constituted yet another forest offence. For this forest offence, the driver of the seized vehicles is already being prosecuted, but respondent no.1, the owner of the seized vehicles, has been kept out of the prosecution. The reasons are not known. At the same time, the law being what it is, as discussed earlier, non-prosecution of respondent no.1, the owner of the seized vehicles, would have no adverse impact on the confiscation proceedings initiated in respect of the seized vehicles by the authorised officer. Then, the question would arise as to whether the authorised officer could have directed confiscation of the seized vehicles or not. 13] In the present case, sufficient opportunity was granted by the authorised officer to the respondent no.1 to make out his defence. But as seen from the statement given by the respondent no.1 before the authorised officer, the respondent no.1 admitted use of the seized vehicles in transportation of the forest-produce involved in the present case on the one hand and did not adduce any evidence or bring on record any circumstances, which could have probabilized his case that he had no knowledge about the use of the seized vehicles by his driver for transportation of the forest- produce without getting issued any transit pass for the same. The respondent no.1 could have produced his driver before the authorised officer and got him say that he used the vehicles for transportation of the forest-produce without obtaining any permission for the same from his owner. The respondent no.1 could have also submitted his driver's written say before the authorised officer that he did not even inform the owner i.e. the respondent no.1, about the use of his vehicles for transportation of the forest-produce. So, one has to say that the burden to prove the fact that the vehicles were used without knowledge of the owner, which was there on the shoulders of the respondent no.1, was not discharged by him even as a reasonable probability. This fact has been appropriately considered by the authorised officer when he recorded a finding that if respondent no.1 possessed the knowledge that his vehicles could not be used for transportation of the forest- produce without having any transit pass, respondent no.1 ought not to have allowed his vehicles to be so used and, the fact that he did allow that user only showed contravention of the relevant rule, resulting in commission of forest offence and rightly so. This only showed that as an owner of the seized vehicles, he failed to take reasonable care in spite of knowing the degree of care that he was under law, obliged to take, and thus he too committed a forest offence, though distinct and separate from the main forest offence. However, the learned Additional Sessions Judge did not consider this basic aspect of the case and the settled position of law and, therefore, committed a manifest illegality in returning a finding that the order passed by the authorised officer was illegal and, therefore, liable to be quashed and set aside.