Power to make orders for regulation of traffic and for preservation of order in public place, etc.

31. Power to make orders for regulation of traffic and for preservation of order in public place, etc. (1) The Commissioner and the District Magistrate, in areas under their respective charges or any part thereof, may make, alter or rescind orders not inconsistent with this Act, for,— (a) licensing and controlling persons offering themselves for employment at quays, wharves and landing places, bus stands and outside railway stations, for the carriage of passengers’ baggages, and fixing and providing for the enforcement of a scale of charges for the labour of such persons so employed; (b) regulating the conditions under which vehicles may remain standing in streets and public places, and the use of streets as halting places for vehicles or cattle; (c) prescribing the number and position of lights to be used on vehicles in streets and the hours between which such lights shall be used; (d) licensing, controlling or prohibiting the display of any pictures, advertisements, news boards, or public notices upon a vessel or boat in territorial waters or on inland waterways other than national waterways; (e) prescribing certain hours of the day during which animals shall not be driven along the streets or along certain specified streets, except subject to such regulations as he may prescribe in that behalf; (f) regulating the leading, driving, conducting or conveying of any elephant or wild or dangerous animal through or in any street or public place; (g) regulating and controlling the manner and mode of conveying timber, scaffold poles, ladders, iron girders, beams or bars, boilers or other unwieldy articles through the streets, and the route and hours for such conveyance; (h) licensing, controlling or, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity, prohibiting the carrying in streets and public places of gunpowder or any other explosive substance; (i) prohibiting, except along certain specified streets and during specified hours and subject to such regulations as he may prescribe in that behalf, the exposure or movement in any street of persons or animals suffering from contagious or infectious diseases and the carcasses of animals or parts thereof and the corpses of persons deceased; (j) prescribing certain hours of the day during which ordure or offensive matter or objects shall not be taken from or into houses or buildings in certain streets or conveyed through such streets except subject to such rules as he may make in that behalf; (k) setting apart places for the slaughtering of animals, the cleaning of carcases or hides, the deposit of noxious or offensive matter and for obeying calls of nature; (l) in cases of existing or apprehended epidemic or infectious diseases of men or animals or birds, the cleanliness and disinfections of premises by the occupier thereof and residents therein and the segregation and management of the persons or animals deceased or supposed to be deceased, as may have been directed or approved by the Government with a view to prevent the disease or to check the spreading thereof; (m) directing the closing or disuse, wholly or for certain purposes, or limiting to certain purposes only the use of any source, supply or receptacle of water, and providing against pollution of the same or of the water therein; (n) licensing, controlling or, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity, prohibiting the playing (1) (o) regulating the conduct of and behaviour or action of persons, constituting assemblies and processions on or along the streets and prescribing in the case of processions, the routes by which, the order in which and the times at which the same may pass; (p) prohibiting the hanging or placing of any cord or pole across a street or part thereof, or the making of a projection or structure so as to obstruct the traffic or the free access of light and air; (q) prohibiting, except under such reasonable rules as he may make, the placing of building materials or other articles or the fastening or detention of any horse or other animals in any street or public place; (r) licensing, controlling or, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity, prohibiting,— (i) the illumination of streets and public places and the exteriors of buildings abutting thereon by persons other than servants of Government or Municipal Officers duly authorised in that behalf; (ii) the blasting of rock or making excavations in or near streets or public places; (iii) the using of a loudspeaker in or near any public place or in any place of public entertainment; (s) closing certain streets or places temporarily in cases of danger from ruinous buildings or other cause, with such exceptions as shall appear reasonable; (t) guarding against injury to person and property in the construction, repair and demolition of buildings, platforms and other structures from which danger may arise to passengers, neighbours or the public; (u) prohibiting the setting fire to or burning any straw or other matter, or lighting a bonfire or wantonly discharging a fire-arm or air gun, or letting off, or throwing a fire-work, or sending up a fire balloon or rocket in or upon or within fifty feet of a street or building or the putting up of any post or other thing on the side of or across a street for the purpose of affixing thereto lamps or other contrivances for illumination, except subject to such reasonable rules, as he may make in that behalf; (v) regulating the hours during which and the manner in which any place for the disposal of the dead, any Dharmashala, or village-gate or other place of public resort may be used so as to secure the equal and appropriate application of its advantages and accommodation and to maintain orderly conduct amongst those who resort thereto; (w) (i) licensing or controlling places of public amusement or entertainment; (ii) prohibiting the keeping of places of public amusement or entertainment or assembly, in order to prevent obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage to the residents or passengers in the vicinity; (iii) regulating the means of entrance and exit at places of public amusement or entertainment or assembly and providing for the maintenance of public safety and the prevention of disturbance thereat; (x) (i) licensing or controlling with such exceptions as may be specified, the musical, dancing, mimetic, or theatrical or other performances for public amusement, including melas and tamashas; (ii) regulating in the interest of public order, decency or morality or in the interest of general public, the employment of artists, and the conduct of the artists and the audience at such performances; (iii) prior scrutiny of such performance by a Board appointed by the Government or by an Advisory Committee appointed by the Commissioner or the District Magistrate in this behalf; (iv) regulating the hours during which and the places at which such performances may be given; (y) regulating or prohibiting the sale of any ticket or pass for admission, by whatever name called, to a place of public amusement; (z) prescribing the procedure in accordance with which any licence or permission sought to be obtained or required under this Act should be applied for, and fixing the fees to be charged for any such licence or permission: Provided that any action taken under the orders made under this sub-section or the grant of a licence under such orders shall be subject to the control and supervision of the Government. (za) Regulating, controlling and monitoring of safety and security of children. (2) (i) The power of making, altering or rescinding orders under clauses (a), (b), (c), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j), (k), (l), (m), (n), (o), (p), (q), (r), (s), (t) and (u) and in so far as it relates to any of the aforesaid matters under clause (z) of sub-section (1) shall be subject to the control of the Government. (ii) The power of making, altering or rescinding orders under the remaining clauses of sub-section (1) shall be subject to the previous sanction of the Government. (3) Every order made under clause (v) of sub-section (1) with respect to the use of a place for the disposal of the dead shall be framed with due regard to ordinary and established usages and to the necessities of prompt disposal of the dead in individual cases. (4) Every order promulgated under the authority of clause (l) of sub-section (1) shall be forthwith reported to the Government or such authority as the Government may appoint in this behalf. (5) Any order made under this section in so far as it relates to public health, convenience or safety of any locality, shall be subject to the provisions of any law relating to municipalities or other local authorities in force in such locality and any rule, regulation or bye-law made under such law. (6) The power of making, altering or rescinding orders under this section shall be subject to the condition of the orders being made, altered or rescinded after previous publication, in accordance with the provisions of section 23 of the Karnataka General clauses Act 1899 and every orders made or alteration or rescission of an order made under this section shall be published in the Official Gazette and in the locality affected thereby by affixing copies thereof in conspicuous places near to the building, structure, work or place, as the case may be, to which the same specifically relates or by proclaiming the same by the beating of drums or by advertising the same in such local newspapers in English or in the local language, as the authority making, altering or rescinding the order rule may deem fit, or by any two or more of these means or by any other means it may think suitable: Provided that any such orders may be made, altered or rescinded without previous publication if the Commissioner or the District Magistrate, as the case may be, is satisfied that circumstances exist which render it necessary that such orders or alterations therein or rescission thereof should be brought into force at once. (7) Notwithstanding anything hereinbefore contained in this section or which may be contained in any order made thereunder, it shall always be lawful for the competent authority to refuse a licence for, or to prohibit, the keeping of any place of public amusement or entertainment by a person of notoriously bad character.