418- . MEDICAL JtTRISPRUDENCE

THE LEPERS' ACT

In the year 1898, the Lepers7 Act (Act No. Ill of 1898) was passed to
provide for the segregation and medical treatment of pauper lepers and the
control of lepers following certain callings. This Act was further amended
in the year 1920, and the amended Act is called the Lepers' (Amendment)
Act, 1920 (Act No. XXII of 1920).

The Lepers' Act extends to the whole of British India, but it does not
come into force in any part thereof until the Local Government has declared
it applicable thereto. A leper is defined in the Act as any person suffering
from any variety of leprosy, and a pauper leper is defined as a leper who
publicly solicits alms or exposes or exhibits any sores, wounds, bodily ail-
ment or deformity with the object of exciting charity or of obtaining alms,
or who is at large without any ostensible means of subsistence. Any police-
officer or any other person empowered by the Local Government within a
notified area may arrest without a warrant any person who appears to him
to be a pauper leper and shall take or send him immediately to the nearest
convenient police-station. The person so arrested must, without unneces-
sary delay, be taken before a qualified medical practitioner appointed by
Government as an Inspector of Lepers, who—

(a) if he finds that such person is not a leper as defined in the Act, will
give him a certificate in Form A (see below), whereupon such
person will be forthwith released from arrest;

(b) if he finds that such person is a leper within the meaning of the Act,
will give to the police-officer, in whose custody the leper is, a
certificate in Form B (see below), whereupon the leper will, with-
out unnecessary delay, be taken before a Magistrate having jurisdic-
tion tinder this Act. If it appears to the Magistrate from the
evidence placed before him that the person is not only a leper but
also a pauper leper, he may order such person to be detained in a
leper asylum. If any friend or relative of the pauper leper will
undertake in writing to the satisfaction of the Magistrate that he
will be properly taken care of and will be prevented from publicly
begging in any notified area, the Magistrate, instead of sending the
leper to an asylum, may make him over to the care of such friend
or relative, requiring him, if he thinks fit, to enter into a bond with
one or more sureties.

The Local Government may, by Gazette notification, order that no leper
shall, within any notified area,—

(a) personally prepare for sale or sell any article of food or drink or any
drugs or clothing intended for human use; or

(b) bathe, wash clothes or take water from any public well or tank
debarred by any municipal or local bye-law from use by lepers ; or

(c) drive, conduct or ride in any public carriage plying for hire other,
'than a railway carriage ; or

(d) exercise any trade or calling which may by notification be pro-
hibited to lepers.

FORM A.-<:ERTIFICATE

I, THE undersigned (here enter name and official designation), hereby certify

that I on the.......... day of ,...............___ at ................... personally

examined (here enter name of person examined) and that the said....................

is not a leper as defined by the Lepers' (Amendment) Act, 1920.

Given under my hand this................___ day of.................... 19___

(Signature)
- . Inspector of Lepers.