Court caseAIR 1951 SC 204

The appellant owned a petrol pump. In his absence his servant supplied petrol to two cars without taking coupons, in breach of the Motor Spirit Rationing Order, 1941; on one occasion the servant also failed to endorse the coupons as the Order required. The owner was prosecuted and convicted for the servant's acts although he was not present and had not authorised them.

The Supreme Court held that, unless a statute expressly or by necessary implication rules out mens rea, a person cannot be convicted of an offence of which he had no knowledge and which he did not authorise. The supply of petrol without coupons by the servant in the master's absence could not be visited on the master, and those convictions were set aside. The Court upheld the conviction for the failure to endorse the coupons, because the Order placed that duty on the licensee himself in absolute terms: there the statute made the licensee answerable whoever physically handled the coupons.