Judgment :- 1. The petitioner was charged by the Shertallai Municipality for failure to pay the property tax due from two items for the year 1960-61. Demand notices were sent by registered post, but the amount was not paid. Since the petitioner was residing outside the Municipal limits and had no movable properties within the municipality distraint was impracticable and the petitioner was, therefore, prosecuted. 2. That demand notices were properly served is amply proved and was not, in fact, disputed in the court below. The contention raised was that the petitioner had on receipt of the demand notices sent the amount by money order, that there were no arrears of tax and as such she could not have been prosecuted. The municipality has proved that the amount received by money order has been duly credited to the arrears of tax due from the petitioner for the year 1958-59. Even assuming her case to be true, she had sent money only for the first half year and not for the full year and therefore, in any view, the learned Magistrate was justified in finding the petitioner guilty of the offence charged. 3. Here, in this court, the petitioner's learned counsel raised for the first time a question of limitation. According to him the complaint ought to have been filed within three months of the commission of the offence. It is stated that the property tax shall be paid by the owner within 30 days after the commencement of the next half year and so the learned counsel contends that in this case the petitioner should have paid the amount due for the first half year within 1st May 1961 and the amount due for the second half year within 1st November 1961 and when that was not paid an offence could be said to have been committed and the complaint not having been filed within three months from that date, the prosecution is barred under S.368 of the Travancore District Municipalities Act (Act 23 of 1116). The material part of S.368 is as follows: "No person shall be tried for any offence against the provisions of this Act, or of any rule, or bye-law made under it unless complaint is made by the police, or the executive authority or by a person expressly authorised in this behalf by the council or the Executive authority within three months of the commission of the offence." The learned counsel for the municipality, on the other hand, contends that the proper section applicable to the case is not S.368, but S.366, which is as follows: "No distraint shall be made, no suit shall be instituted and no prosecution shall be commenced in respect of any sum due to the Municipal Council under this Act after the expiration of a period of three years from the date on which distraint might first have been made, a suit might first have been instituted, or prosecution might first have been commenced, as the case may be, in respect of such sum". 4. Prima facie S.366 of the Act would apply to this case, because the prosecution is in respect of a sum due to the Municipal Council under the Act, namely, the property tax. There are various provisions of the Act, under which sums become payable and due to the Municipal Council either by way of tax or compensation and several methods of recovery are also included in the Act and in the schedules. A prosecution is one such method of recovery. S.366, therefore would apply just as it would apply to a suit for the recovery of the sum and also to a distraint in respect of the sum. The rules of Schedule.2 which are the rules applicable to the recovery of the property tax make it clear that if the amount due for property tax is not paid, the executive authority may proceed to recover it in one of the three ways: (1) by distraint; (2) by a prosecution; and (3) by a suit in a civil court. S.368, on the other hand, would apply to all cases where an offence is committed against the provisions of the Actor any rule or bye-law made under it, except where the prosecution is in respect of any sum due to the Municipal Council. S.368, on the other hand, would apply to all cases where an offence is committed against the provisions of the Actor any rule or bye-law made under it, except where the prosecution is in respect of any sum due to the Municipal Council. There are several sections in the Act and several rules in the Schedules, a contravention of one or other of which is made an offence. S.368 would apply to all such offences. 5. An identical question arose in the case in Sevugan Chettiar v. Karaikudi Municipality (AIR. 1948 Mad. 290) where Rajamannar, J., as he then was, following the decision in Panchayat Board, Sivaganga v. Pallathian Servai (AIR. 1937 Mad. 272) held: "Where a person is prosecuted under R.30 (2) read with R.36 of Schedule IV of the Mad. Dist. Municipalities Act for wilful omission to pay the property tax, the case is governed for the purposes of limitation by S.345 of the Act and not by S.347. The point of difference between the cases to which S.345 would apply and the cases to which S.347 would apply is that in cases falling under S.345 a specific sum of money would be due to the Muncipal Council under the provisions of the Act even before the date of the prosecution; whereas, under S.347 there is no condition that there should be an amount due to the Municipality before the date of the prosecution." I am in respectful agreement with this view. It, therefore, follows that the conviction of the accused is correct. The conviction and sentence passed on the petitioner are confirmed and the revision petition is dismissed. Cr. E. P. No. 100 os 100 of 1963. In this case also the petitioner is the same as in Criminal Revision Petition 99 of 1962. The prosecution was in respect of the non-payment of property tax for another item of property. The Magistrate found the petitioner guilty as charged. Identical questions were raised in this case and for the reasons stated by me in Criminal Revision Petition 99 of 1962, this petition is also dismissed.