265. Public markets and slaughter-houses.—(1) A Board may provide and maintain, on the land
under its control, public markets and public slaughter-houses, to such number as it thinks fit, together
with stalls, shops, sheds, pens and other buildings or conveniences for the use of persons carrying on
trade or business in or frequenting such markets or slaughter-houses, and may provide and maintain in
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any such market buildings, places, machines, weights, scales and measures for the weighment or
measurement of goods sold therein.
(2) When such market or slaughter-house is situated beyond cantonment limits, the Board shall have
the same power for the inspection and proper regulation of the same as if it were situated within those
limits.
(3) The Board may at any time, by public notice, close any public market or public slaughter-house or
any part thereof.
(4) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to authorise the establishment of a public market or public
slaughter-house within the limits of any area administered by any local authority other than the Board,
without the permission of such local authority or otherwise than on such conditions as such local
authority may approve.
266. Use of public market.—(1) No person shall, without the general or special permission in
writing of the Chief Executive Officer, sell or expose for sale any animal or article in any public market.
(2) Any person contravening the provisions of this section, and any animal or article exposed for sale
by such person, may be summarily removed from the market by or under the orders of the Chief
Executive Officer or any official of the Board authorised by him in this behalf.
267. Power to transfer by public auction, etc.—(1) The Board may transfer by public auction, for
any period not exceeding five years at a time, the right to occupy or use any stall, shop, standing, shed or
pen in a public market, or public slaughter-house or the right to expose goods for sale in a public market
or the right to weigh or measure goods sold therein, or the right to slaughter animals in any public
slaughter-house:
Provided that where the Board is of opinion that such transfer of the aforesaid rights by public auction
is not considered desirable or expedient, it may, with the previous sanction of the General Officer
Commanding-in-Chief, the Command or in his absence, the Principal Director,—
(a) either levy such stallages, rents or fees as it thinks fit; or
(b) farm the stallages, rents and fees leviable under clause (a) for any period not exceeding one
year at a time:
Provided further that the enjoyment of any such aforesaid right by any person for any length of time
shall never be deemed to create or confer any tenancy right in such stall, shop, standing, shed, pen, public
market or public slaughter-house.
(2) The Board may transfer by public auction or otherwise any immovable property other than in a
public market or a public slaughter house if such property is capable of being put to remunerative use for
such period and on such terms and conditions as may be approved by the General Officer
Commanding-in-Chief, the Command or in his absence, the Principal Director.
268. Stallages, rents, etc., to be published.—A copy of the table of stallages, rents and fees, if any,
leviable in any public market or public slaughter-house, and of the bye-laws made under this Act for the
purpose of regulating the use of such market or slaughter-house, printed in English language or in such
other language or languages as the Board may direct, shall be affixed in some conspicuous place in the
market or slaughter-house.
269. Private markets and slaughter-houses.—(1) No place in a cantonment other than a public
market shall be used as a market, and no place in a cantonment other than a public slaughter-house shall
be used as a slaughter-house, unless such place has been licensed as a market or slaughter-house, as the
case may be, by the Board:
Provided that nothing in this sub-sections shall apply in the case of a
slaughter-house established and maintained by the Central Government or the State Government, as the
case may be.
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(2) Nothing in sub-section (1) shall be deemed—
(a) to restrict these slaughter of any animal in any place on the occasion of any festival or
ceremony, subject to such conditions as to prior or subsequent notice as the Chief Executive Officer
with the previous sanction of the District Magistrate may, by public or special notice, impose in this
behalf; or
(b) to prevent the Chief Executive Officer, with the sanction of the Board, from setting apart
places for the slaughter of animals in accordance with religious custom.
(3) Whoever omits to comply with any condition imposed by the Chief Executive Officer under
clause (a) of sub-section (2) shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees and,
in the case of continuing offence, with an additional fine which may extend to one thousand rupees for
every day after the first during which the offence is continued.
270. Conditions of grant of licence for private market or slaughter-house.—(1) A Board may
charge such fees as it thinks fit to impose for the grant of a licence to any person to open a private market
or private slaughter-house in the cantonment, and may grant such licence subject to such conditions,
consistent with this Act and any bye-laws made thereunder, as it thinks fit to impose.
(2) The Board may refuse to grant any such licence without giving reasons for such refusal.
271. Penalty for keeping market or slaughter-house open without licence, etc.—(1) Any person
who keeps open for public use any market or slaughter-house in respect of which a licence is required by
or under this Act, without obtaining licence therefor, or while the licence therefor is suspended, or after
the same has been cancelled, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees and,
in the case of a continuing offence, with an additional fine which may extend to five hundred rupees for
every day after the first during which the offence is continued.
(2) When a licence to open a private market or private slaughter-house is granted or refused or is
suspended or cancelled, the Board shall cause a notice of the grant, refusal, suspension or cancellation to
be pasted in English or such language or languages as it thinks necessary in some conspicuous place by or
near the entrance to the place to which the notice relates.
272. Penalty for using unlicensed market or slaughter-house.—Whoever, knowing that any
market or slaughter-house has been opened to the public without a licence having been obtained therefor
when such licence is required by or under this Act, or that the licence granted therefor is for the time
being suspended or that it has been cancelled, sells or exposes for sale any article in such market, or
slaughters any animal in such slaughter-house, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five
thousand rupees and, in the case of a continuing offence, with an additional fine which may extend to five
hundred rupees for every day after the first during which the offence is continued.
273. Prohibition and restriction of use of slaughter-house.—(1) Where, in the opinion of the Chief
Executive Officer, it is necessary on sanitary grounds so to do, he may, by public notice, prohibit for such
period not exceeding one month, as may be specified in the notice, or for such further period not
exceeding one month, as he may specify by a like notice, the use of any private slaughter-house specified
in the notice, or the slaughter therein of any animal of any description so specified.
(2) A copy of every notice issued under sub-section (1) shall be conspicuously pasted in the
slaughter-house to which it relates.
274. Power to inspect slaughter-houses.—(1) Any official of a Board, authorised by order in
writing in this behalf by the Chief Executive Officer or the Health Officer, may, if he has reason to
believe that any animal has been, is being, or is about to be slaughtered in any place in contravention of
the provisions of this Chapter, enter into and inspect any such place at any time, whether by day or by
night.
(2) Every such order shall specify the place to be entered and the locality in which the same is
situated and the period, which shall not exceed seven days for which the order is to remain in force.
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275. Power to regulate certain activities.—A Board may, by order, regulate all or any of the
following matters, namely:—
(a) the days on, and the hours during, which any private market or private slaughter-house may be
kept open for use;
(b) the regulation of the design, ventilation and drainage of such market or slaughter-houses, and
the material to be used in the construction thereof;
(c) the keeping of such markets and slaughter-houses and lands and buildings appertaining thereto
in a clean and sanitary condition, the removal of filth and refuse therefrom, and the supply therein of
pure water and of a sufficient number of latrines and urinals for the use of persons using or
frequenting the same;
(d) the manner in which animals shall be stalled at a slaughter-house;
(e) the manner in which animals may be slaughtered;
(f) the disposal or destruction of animals offered for slaughter which are, from disease or any
other cause, unfit for human consumption;
(g) the destruction of carcasses which from disease or any other cause are found after slaughter to
be unfit for human consumption; and
(h) any other matter with respect to the regulation of such markets and slaughter-houses.
Trade and occupations
276. Provision of washing places.—(1) A Board may provide suitable places for the exercise by
washermen of their calling, and may require payment of such fees for the use thereof as it thinks fit.
(2) Where the Board has provided such places as aforesaid it may, by public notice, prohibit the
washing of clothes by washermen at any other place in the cantonment:
Provided that such prohibition shall not be deemed to apply to the washing by a washerman of his
own clothes or of the clothes of any other person who is an occupier of the place at which they are
washed.
(3) Whoever contravenes any prohibition contained in a notice is sued under sub-section (2) shall be
punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees.
277. Licences required for carrying on of certain occupations.—(1) No person of any of the
following classes, namely:—
(a) butchers and vendors of poultry, game or fish;
(b) persons keeping pigs for profit, and dealers in the flesh of pigs which have been slaughtered
within or without cantonment;
(c) persons keeping milch cattle or milch goats for profit;
(d) persons keeping for profit any animals other than pigs, milch cattle or milch goats;
(e) dairymen, buttermen and makers and vendors of ghee;
(f) makers of bread, biscuits or cake and vendors of bread, biscuits or cake made within or
without cantonment;
(g) vendors of fruits or vegetables;
(h) manufacturers of aerated or other potable waters or of ice or ice-cream, and vendors of the
same;
(i) vendors of any medicines, drugs or articles of food or drink for human consumption
(other than the flesh of pigs, milk, butter, bread, biscuits, cake, fruit, vegetables, aerated or other
potable waters or ice or ice-cream) which are of a perishable nature;
(j) vendors of spirituous liquor;
(k) vendors of water to be used for drinking purposes;
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(l) washermen;
(m) dealers in hay, straw, wood, charcoal or other inflammable material;
(n) dealers in fire-works, kerosene oil, petroleum or any other inflammable oil or spirit;
(o) tanners and dyers;
(p) persons carrying on any trade or occupation from which offensive or unwholesome smells
arise;
(q) vendors of wheat, rice and other grain or of flour;
(r) makers and vendors of sugar or sweetmeats;
(s) barbers and keepers of shaving saloons;
(t) any other person carrying on such other trade, calling or occupation as the Central Government
may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify in this behalf,
shall carry on his trade, calling or occupation in any part of a cantonment unless he has applied for and
obtained a licence in this behalf from the Board.
(2) A licence granted under sub-section (1) shall be valid until the end of the year in which it is issued
and the grant of such licence shall not be withheld by the Board unless it has reason to believe that the
business which it is intended to establish or maintain would be offensive or dangerous to the public or
that the premises in which the business is intended to be established or maintained are unfit or unsuitable
for the purpose.
(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1),—
(a) no person who was, at the commencement of this Act, carrying on his trade, calling or
occupation in any part of a cantonment shall be bound to apply for a licence for carrying on such
trade or occupation in that part until he has received from the Board not less than three month’s notice
in writing of his obligation to do so, and if the Board refuses to grant him a licence, it shall pay
compensation for any loss incurred by reason of such refusal;
(b) no person shall be required to take out a licence for the sale or storage of petroleum or for the
sale or possession for sale of poisons or white arsenic in any case in which he is required to take out a
licence for such sale, storage, or possession for sale by or under the Petroleum Act,
1934 (30 of 1934) or the Poisons Act, 1919 (12 of 1919).
(4) The Board may charge for the grant of licences, under this section such reasonable fees, as it may
fix keeping in view the fees levied in this regard in a municipality in the State wherein such cantonment is
situated.
278. Power to stop use of premises used in contravention of licences.—If the Chief Executive
Officer is of opinion that any eating house, lodging house, hotel, boarding house, tea shop, coffee house,
café, restaurant, refreshment room or other place where public is admitted for repose or for consumption
of any food or drink or where food is sold or prepared for sale or any theatre, cinema hall, circus, dancing
hall or similar other place of public resort, recreation or amusement is kept open without a license or
otherwise than in conformity with the terms of a license granted in respect thereof, he may stop the use of
any such premises for any such purpose for a specified period by such means as he may consider
necessary.
279. Conditions which may be attached to licences.—A licence granted to any person under
section 277 shall specify the part of the cantonment in which the licensee may carry on his trade, calling
or occupation, and may regulate the hours and manner of transport within the cantonment of any specified
articles intended for human consumption, and may contain any other conditions which the Board thinks
fit to impose in accordance with bye-laws made under this Act.
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General provisions
280. Power to vary licence.—If the Board is satisfied that any place used under a licence granted
under this Chapter is a nuisance or is likely to be dangerous to life, health or property, the Board may, by
notice in writing, require the owner, lessee or occupier thereof to discontinue the use of such place or to
effect such alternations, additions, or improvements as will, in the opinion of the Board, render it no
longer a nuisance or dangerous.
281. Carrying on trade, etc., without licence or in contravention of section 280.—Whoever
carries any trade, calling or occupation for which a licence is required without obtaining a licence therefor
or while the licence therefor is suspended or after the same has been cancelled, and whoever, after
receiving a notice under section 280, uses or allows to be used any building or place in contravention
thereof, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees and, in the case of a
continuing offence, with an additional fine which may extend to five hundred rupees for every day after
the first during which the offence is continued.
282. Feeding animals on dirt, etc.—Whoever feeds or allows to be fed on filthy or deleterious
substances any animal, which is kept for the purpose of supplying milk to, or which is intended to be used
as food for, the inhabitants of a cantonment or allows it to graze in any place in which grazing has, for
sanitary reasons, been prohibited by public notice by the Board shall be punishable with fine which may
extend to one thousand rupees.
Entry, inspection and seizure
283. Powers of entry and seizure.—(1) The President or the Vice-President, the Chief Executive
Officer, the Health Officer, the Assistant Health Officer, or any other official of a Board authorised by it
in writing in this behalf—
(a) may at any time enter into any market, building, shop, stall or other place in the cantonment
for the purpose of inspecting, and may inspect, any animal, article or thing intended for human food
or drink or for medicine, whether exposed or hawked about for sale or deposited in or brought to any
place for the purpose of sale, or of preparation for sale, or any utensil or vessel for preparing,
manufacturing or containing any such article, or thing, and may enter into and inspect any place used
as a slaughter-house and may examine any animal or article therein;
(b) may seize any such animal, article or thing which appears to him to be diseased, or
unwholesome or unfit for human food or drink or medicine, as the case may be, or to be adulterated
or to be not what it is represented to be, or any such utensil or vessel which is of such a kind or in
such a state as to render any article prepared, manufactured or contained therein unwholesome or
unfit for human food, drink or medicine, as the case may be.
(2) Any article seized under sub-section (1) which is of a perishable nature may, under the orders of
the Health Officer or the Assistant Health Officer, forthwith be destroyed if, in his opinion, it is diseased,
unwholesome or unfit for human food, drink or medicine, as the case may be.
(3) Every animal, article, utensil, vessel or other thing seized under sub-section (1) shall, if it is not
destroyed under sub-section (2), be taken before a Magistrate who shall give orders as to its disposal.
(4) The owner or person in possession, at the time of seizure under sub-section (1), of any animal or
carcass which is diseased or of any article or thing which is unwholesome or unfit for human food, drink
or medicine, as the case may be, or is adulterated or is not what it is represented to be, or of any utensil or
vessel which is of such kind or in such state as is described in clause (b) of sub-section (1), shall be
punishable with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees, and the animal, article, utensil, vessel or
other thing shall be liable to be forfeited to the Board or to be destroyed or to be so disposed of as to
prevent it being exposed for sale or used for the preparation of food, drink or medicine, as the case may
be.
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Explanation I.—If any such article, having been exposed or stored in, or brought to, any place
mentioned in sub-section (1) for sale as ghee, contains any substance not exclusively derived from milk, it
shall be deemed, for the purposes of this section, to be an article which is not what it is represented to be.
Explanation II.—Meat subjected to the process of blowing shall be deemed to be unfit for human
food.
Explanation III.—The article of food or drink shall not be deemed to be other than what it is
represented to be merely by reason of the fact that there has been added to it some substance not injurious
to health:
Provided that—
(a) such substance has been added to the article because the same is required for the preparation
or production thereof as an article of commerce in a state fit for carriage or consumption and not
fraudulently to increase the bulk, weight or measure of the food or drink or conceal the inferior
quality thereof; or
(b) in the process of production, preparation or conveyance of such article of food or drink, the
extraneous substance has unavoidably become intermixed therewith; or
(c) the owner or person in possession of the article has given sufficient notice by means of a label
distinctly and legibly written or printed thereon or therewith, or by other means of a public
description, that such substance has been added; or
(d) such owner or person has purchased the article with a written warranty that it was of a certain
nature, substance and quality and had no reason to believe that it was not of such nature, substance
and quality, and has exposed it or hawked it about or brought it for sale in the same state and by the
same description as that in and by which he purchased it.
Import of cattle and flesh
284. Import of cattle and flesh.—(1) No person shall, without the permission in writing of the Chief
Executive Officer, bring into a cantonment any animal intended for human consumption, or the flesh of
any animal slaughtered outside the cantonment otherwise than in a slaughter-house maintained by the
Central Government or the State Government or the Board:
Provided that the Chief Executive Officer shall not grant such permission unless he has considered
the recommendation of the Health Officer made this behalf.
(2) Any animal or flesh brought into a cantonment in contravention of sub-section (1) may be seized
by the Chief Executive Officer or by any official of the Board and sold or otherwise disposed of as the
President of the Board may direct, and, if it is sold, the sale proceeds may be credited to the cantonment
fund.
(3) Whoever contravenes the provisions of sub-section (1) shall be punishable with fine which may
extend to two thousand five hundred rupees.
(4) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to apply to cured or preserved meat or to animals driven
or meat carried through a cantonment for consumption outside thereof, or to meat brought into a
cantonment by any person for his immediate domestic consumption:
Provided that the Board may, by public notice, direct that the provisions of this section shall apply to
cured or preserved meat of any specified description or brought from any specified place.