Specific saving clauses override general saving rules, and relief for company officers turns on honesty and reasonableness.

Specific savings in a repealing statute will displace the general saving rule under the General Clauses Act where Parliament has shown a contrary intention; only prosecutions expressly preserved survive the repeal. On that basis, a prosecution initiated after the Companies Act, 1956 came into force in the territory was not saved and was unsustainable. The article also states that relief for an officer under section 633 of the Companies Act, 1956 depends on honesty, reasonableness and whether the person ought fairly to be excused in the circumstances, not on the absence of criminal intention.

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Issues: (i) Whether the prosecution launched under the Indian Companies Act, 1913 was saved after the Companies Act, 1956 came into force in Pondicherry. (ii) Whether relief under section 633 of the Companies Act, 1956 depends on absence of criminal intention.

Issue (i): Whether the prosecution launched under the Indian Companies Act, 1913 was saved after the Companies Act, 1956 came into force in Pondicherry.

Analysis: The saving provision in section 648 of the Companies Act, 1956 protected only prosecutions already instituted or ordered to be instituted under section 237 of the Indian Companies Act, 1913 before commencement of the new Act. The present prosecution was instituted long after the new Act had come into force in the territory. Section 658 made section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 applicable only where no contrary intention appeared, but the specific and limited savings in sections 645 to 657 showed that Parliament intended to preserve only the stated matters and not the underlying pre-repeal liability leading to prosecution.

Conclusion: The prosecution was not saved and was unsustainable.

Issue (ii): Whether relief under section 633 of the Companies Act, 1956 depends on absence of criminal intention.

Analysis: Section 633(1) empowers the court to relieve an officer from liability in proceedings for negligence, default, breach of duty, misfeasance or breach of trust if he acted honestly and reasonably and ought fairly to be excused in the circumstances. The provision is concerned with honesty, reasonableness and the surrounding facts, not with criminal intention. The standard is discretionary relief from liability, and not acquittal on criminal-law principles.

Conclusion: Relief under section 633 does not turn on criminal intention; the Magistrate's view on that point was wrong.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the acquittal failed on the saving-of-prosecution point, and the appeal was dismissed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a repealing statute contains specific savings that disclose a contrary intention, section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 will not preserve liabilities or prosecutions not expressly saved; and relief under section 633 of the Companies Act, 1956 is governed by honesty, reasonableness and fairness of excuse, not by criminal intent.

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