Order.- This is a criminal revision case filed against the conviction and sentence of the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate in C.C. No. 4131 of 1951. The facts are short and undisputed. The petitioner before us is the owner of premises No. 312, Thambu Chetti Street, G.T., Madras. This property had been let out by him to X. On that X vacating the premises, this owner sent a communication to the Accommodation Controller on 6th June, 1949. There is no dispute now that this communication reached the Controller on the 7th. This petitioner has been waiting till the 14th and finding no reply from the Accommodation Controller occupied his own premises. The question is whether the landlord has not complied with section 3 of Madras Act XXV of 1949 as it stood before the words “within a week” were amended into “within 10 days”. The section gives option to the Accommodation Controller, on receiving a notice from the owner of the house of a vacancy, to communicate to him within a week, a reply whether he intends to allot the house to a tenant or whether he is not going to exercise the option but allow the owner himself to occupy it. Therefore it becomes very important whether in this case the communication from the Controller was received by this landlord within a week of his sending the notice to the Controller. The lower Court came to the conclusion that we must exclude the 7th and on that basis “within a week” would mean the 15th and not the 14th. Therefore the Court held that this house-owner had not complied with the order of the Controller allotting the house to one Ridex. The position taken by the Chief Presidency Magistrate is both in accordance with common sense, the spirit of the Act, as well as the authorities on the subject. Common sense requires that “within a week” should mean the exclusion of the date of the occurrence as otherwise we would be taking into consideration fractions of a day and calculate practically from the previous day. Then the spirit of this provision is that the Accommodation Controller must have a clear week for making up his mind whether he should allot the house to a tenant or he should not exercise his option. This period has now been increased to ten days. Then the spirit of this provision is that the Accommodation Controller must have a clear week for making up his mind whether he should allot the house to a tenant or he should not exercise his option. This period has now been increased to ten days. Then we have the extract from U.N. Mitra’s “Limitation and Prescription” and the decision in Lester v. Garland1, cited by the lower court which make it clear that in computing the period of within one week we must exclude the date of occurrence. There is also another reported case, Williams v. Burgess1, where the term “within 21 days” and the word “of” have been similarly construed and this decision followed Lester v. Garland2. Therefore the construction placed by the Chief Presidency Magistrate is correct and on that the conviction which followed is also correct. But the learned advocate for the petitioner points out to me the really serious consequence of this conviction, namely, that if it is held that this petitioner deliberately disobeyed the order of the Accommodation Controller, then the Accommodation Controller would be in a position to reopen the matter and put in a tenant. To my mind this would not be an equitable thing to do having regard to the lapse of time as well as the fact that when we ourselves had to make legal research to find out what within a week means, namely, whether it should or should not include the day of occurrence, a layman like the petitioner in this case cannot be expected to know better. On the other hand, he seems to have been under a genuine belief that “within a week” would mean that the Accommodation Controller must have exercised his option before the 14th. It is to be hoped that an inequitable course will not be taken and this owner be allowed to continue on his own property. In the circumstances of the case, where the infringement by this petitioner was more on account of legitimate ignorance of the law, the punishment of a fine of Rs. 200 seems to me excessive. On the other hand it seems to me that the ends of justice would be met if I reduce it to Rs. 75. Ordered accordingly. The excess amounts if collected will be refunded to the petitioner. K.S. ----- Fine reduced.