The Hindu : New Delhi News : Guest house owner jailed for ignoring closure order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 30, 2007
ePaper

New Delhi

New Delhi

Guest house owner jailed for ignoring closure order

Delhi police directed to initiate proceedings against all guest house owners disobeying court orders

“He deserves no leniency tried to circumvent the law by resorting to deceptive means”
Loveleen Singh tried to dodge authorities by re-starting his guest house under a new name

NEW DELHI: The owner of an unlicensed guest house here has landed in jail for ignoring a court’s closure order and trying to deceive the authorities by re-opening it under a new name.

Sending Loveleen Singh to jail for five days, Additional Sessions Judge A.K. Mendiratta directed Delhi’s Police Commissioner and Adarsh Nagar police officers to initiate proceedings against all guest house owners who were flouting the law and disobeying court orders like the convict.

Dismissing Loveleen Singh’s appeal against his conviction by a lower court, the Sessions judge said he did not deserve any leniency as he had shown disrespect for the law and tried to circumvent it by resorting to deceptive means.

“There appears to be a clear abuse of the process of law with respect to the premises.... a guest house by another name cannot be run [from the same premises] by the accused unless a licence is obtained,” the court said.

Loveleen Singh, a resident of Kingsway Camp in North Delhi, was convicted and fined Rs.50 by a magistrate in June this year asking him not to run the guest house until he obtains a licence.

According to the prosecution, he tried to dodge the authorities by re-starting his guest house under a new name, leading to his conviction in August for defying an earlier court order. During his second conviction, Singh was sentenced to serve a five-day jail term.

Singh challenged his conviction on the ground that he could not be convicted twice for the same offence and that his application for a licence was pending with the authorities.

Dismissing his contentions, the court observed that his second conviction was a separate offence of breach o a court order and further that there were documents on record proving that his request for a licence had already been cancelled by the ACP (Licensing). — PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi