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The facts that give rise to the appeals may be briefly stated: The appellant, Sri Kapur Chand Pokhraj, was the proprietor of Messrs. N. Deepaji Merawalla, a firm dealing in bangles and registered under the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1946. He did not disclose the correct turnover of his sales to the Sales Tax Department in the three quarterly returns furnished by him to the said Department on September 30, 1950, December 31, 1950, and March 31, 1951, respectively. He maintained double sets of books of accounts and knowingly furnished false returns for the said three quarters to the Sales Tax Officer and thereby -committed an offence under s. 24(1)(b) of the repealed Act. Under that Act, sanction of the Collector was a condition precedent for launching of prosecution in respect of an offence committed under s. 24(1) of the said Act. The said Act was repealed by the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1952 (Bom. XXIV of 1952), which was published on October 9, 1952. On December 11, 1952, the Bombay High Court declared the Act of 1952 ultra vires and the State .of Bombay preferred an appeal against the judgment of the Bombay High Court to the Supreme Court. On December 22, 1952, the State Government, in order to get over the dislocation caused by the Bombay judgment, issued the Bombay Sales Tax Ordinance II of 1952, where under it was provided that the 1946 Act was to be deemed to have been in existence up to November 1, 1952. On December 24, 1952, another Ordinance, Ordinance III of 1952, was promulgated extending the life of the Act of 1946. On March 25, 1953, the Bombay State Legislature passed the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1953 (Bom. III of 1953), (hereinafter referred to as the repealing Act), repealing the Act of 1946 and the Ordinance III of 1952. The material fact to be noticed is that the Act III of 1953, though it repealed the earlier Act and the Ordinance extending the life of that Act, made provision for an offence similar to that covered by s. 24(1) of the repealed Act, prescribed a similar procedure for prosecuting persons committing the said offence and saved the liabilities incurred under the repealed Act. During the period when the Ordinance III of 1952 was in force, the State Government issued a notification under s. 3 of that Ordinance appointing the Additional Collector of Bombay to be a Collector under the said Ordinance. On July 4, 1953, i.e., after Act III of 1953 came into force, Mr. Joshi, the Additional Collector of Bombay, granted sanction for the prosecution of the appellant in respect of the offence committed by him under s. 24(1)(b) of the repealed Act. After obtaining the sanction, the appellant was prosecuted under s. 24(1)(b) of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1946. Before the Presidency Magistrate the appellant pleaded guilty to the charge. The learned Magistrate accepted his plea and convicted him for the offence for which he was charged and sentenced him to pay a fine of Rs. 200, in default to suffer one month's rigorous imprisonment. The State of Bombay preferred a Revision against the said Order to the High Court of judicature at Bombay praying that the sentence imposed on the appellant be enhanced on the ground that as the appellant kept double sets of accounts and intentionally furnished false information, the interest of justice required that substantive and heavy sentence should be imposed on him. Before the High Court, the appellant pleaded that by the repeal of the Sales Tax Act, 1946, the offence, if any, committed by him was effaced and that in any view the prosecution was defective inasmuch as sanction had been given by the Additional Collector and not by the Collector of Sales Tax. The contentions did not find favour with the learned Judge of the High Court. In rejecting them, the learned Judge enhanced the sentence passed upon the appellant to rigorous imprisonment for a period of one month in each of the three cases in addition to the fine already imposed by the Magistrate. He directed the substantive sentence of imprisonment in all the three cases to be concurrent. The appellant obtained special leave from this Court to prefer the above appeals against the judgment of the High Court.

the Acts, no Court can take cognizance of the said offence except with the previous sanction of the Collector. The term Collector " is defined in similar terms in the Ordi- nance as well as in the Acts, i e., a person appointed as ,"Collector " by the State Government. The notification issued by the State Government under Ordinance 11I of 1952, appointing the Additional Collector as Collector of Sales Tax must be deemed to have continued to be in force under the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1953, by reason of s. 49 (2) of that Act, as it is common case that no fresh notification was made under that Act repealing that made under that Ordinance. Shortly stated, the Bombay Act III of 1953, introduced the same offence and provided for the same machinery that its predecessors contained. On the basis of the aforesaid provisions, the argument of the learned Counsel for the appellant is that as the State Government appointed the Additional Collector as Collector of Sales Tax in exercise of the power conferred on it under the Ordinance III of 1952 and not under the power conferred on it by the repealed Act, the sanction given by the Additional Collector to prosecute the appellant is invalid. The first answer to this contention is that, as the State Government had the power to appoint any person including' an Additional Collector as Collector of Sales Tax both under the repealed Act as well as the Ordinance III of 1952, the appointment may reasonably be construed to have been made in exercise of the relevant power in respect of the offence saved under the Ordinance. The second answer is more fundamental. There is an essential distinction between an offence and the prosecution for an offence. The former forms part of the substantive law and the latter of procedural law. An offence is. an aggregate of acts or omissions punishable by law while prosecution signified the procedure for obtaining an adjudication of Court in respect of such acts or omissions. Sanction or prior approval of an authority is made a condition precedent to prosecute in regard to specified offences. Prosecution without the requisite sanction makes the entire proceeding ab initio void. It is intended to be a safeguard against frivolous prosecutions and also to give an opportunity to the authority concerned to decide in the circumstances of a particular case whether prosecution is necessary. Sanction to prosecute for an offence is not, therefore, an ingredient of the offence, but it really pertains to procedure. In Maxwell's Interpretation of Statutes, the following passage appears at page 225:

Even so, it was contended that the notification appointing the Additional Collector as Collector of Sales Tax issued under Ordinance No. 11 of 1952 would not enure to the prosecution launched under Act III of 1953. This argument ignored the express provisions of s. 49 (2) of the said Act (already extracted supra), which in clear and express terms laid down that notifications issued or orders made under the repealed Ordinance would be deemed to have been made or issued under the provisions of the Act and would continue to be in force until superseded by appropriate orders or notifications under the new Act. It was not suggested that any fresh notification revoking that made under the Ordinance was issued under the repealing Act. If so, it follows that the notification issued under the Ordinance appointing the Additional Collector as Collector of Sales Tax continued to be in force when the said Collector gave sanction to pro- secute the appellant. In this view it is not necessary to consider the scope of the Bombay Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1956.