Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
Power to compound offences.—(1) The 1[State Government] may, by notification in the 2[Official Gazette], empower a Forest officer— (a) to accept from any person against whom a reasonable suspicion exists that he has committed any forest-offence, other than an offence specified in section 62 or section 63, a sum of money by way of compensation for the offence which such person is suspected to have committed, and (b) when any property has been seized as liable to confiscation, to release the same on payment of the value thereof as estimated by such officer. (2) On the payment of such sum of money, or such value, or both, as the case may be, to such officer, the suspected person, if in custody, shall be discharged, the property, if any seized shall be released, and no further proceedings shall be taken against such person or property. (3) A Forest-officer shall not be empowered under this section unless he is a Forest-officer of a rank not inferior to that of a Ranger and is in receipt of a monthly salary amounting to at least one hundred rupees, and the sum of money accepted as compensation under clause (a) of sub-section (1) shall in no case exceed the sum of fifty rupees. STATE AMENDMENTS Maharashtra Amendment of section 68 of Act 16 of 1927. —In section 68 of the principal Act,— (a) in sub-section (1), — (1) in clause (a), — (i) after the words “other than an offence specified in” the words, brackets and figures “sub-section (4) of section 26 or” shall be inserted; (ii) for the words “payment of a sum of money or, at his discretion, an undertaking in writing to pay a sum of money,” the words “payment of a sum of money” shall be substituted. (2) in clause (b), for the words “ on payment of, or at his discretion, on acceptance of an undertaking in writing to pay,” the words “on payment of” shall be substituted. (b) in sub-section (2), for the words “payment of, or on acceptance of an undertaking in writing to pay,” the words “payment of,” shall be substituted.