9Power of State Government to authorise field firing and artillery practice

(1) The State Government may, by notification in the local Official Gazette, define any area as an area within which for a specified term of years the carrying out periodically of field firing and artillery practice may be authorised.

(2) The State Government may, by notification in the local Official Gazette, authorise the carrying out of field firing and artillery practice throughout a notified area or any specified part thereof during any period or periods specified in the notification.

(3) Before any notification under sub-section (2) is issued, the State Government shall publish notice of its intention to issue such notification as early as possible in advance of the issue of the notification, and no such notification shall be issued until the expiry of two months from the date of the first publication of the notice in the local Official Gazette.

(4) The notice required by sub-section (3) shall be given by publication in the local Official Gazette and shall also be given throughout the notified area by publication in some newspaper circulating in and in the language commonly understood in that area and by beat of drum and by affixation in all prominent places of copies of the said notice in the language of the locality and in such other manner as may be prescribed by rules made under section 13 and shall be repeated by like publication one week as nearly as may be before the commencement of the period or of each period specified in the notification:

Provided that the fact of the said beat of drum and affixation shall be verified in writing by one headman and two other literate inhabitants of the locality and provided further that such notice by the beat of drum shall be given seven and two days as nearly as may be before the commencement of such field firing and artillery practice.