Cotton Ginning and Pressing Factories Act, 1925

This 1925 law regulates cotton ginning factories (which separate cotton fibre from seed) and cotton pressing factories (which press cotton into bales), focused mainly on record-keeping, bale marking, and structural safety standards rather than labour conditions. Section 2 defines "bale," "cotton," "cotton ginning factory," "cotton pressing factory," "cotton waste," and "occupier." Section 3 requires ginning factories to maintain a "ginning register" recording all cotton ginned and for whom, and pressing factories to keep a "press register" recording every bale pressed, its serial number, and who it was pressed for; registers must be kept for at least three years. Failing to maintain a register in the prescribed form, falsifying entries, or destroying a register too early is punishable with a fine which may extend to fifty rupees, rising to five hundred rupees for a repeat offence (Section 3(5)-(6)).

Section 4 requires every bale from a pressing factory to be marked with a serial number and the factory's mark before it leaves the press-house, with a fine up to fifty rupees for non-compliance. Section 5 requires pressing factories to submit weekly returns on the number and average weight of bales pressed (fine up to fifty rupees for default), and Section 5A extends a similar weekly reporting duty to ginning factories, though that section only applies automatically in the Karachi Division and Balochistan unless the Provincial Government extends it elsewhere. Section 6 requires factories to use only the scales and weights prescribed as standard for their district, with a fine up to fifty or five hundred rupees (for repeat offences) for violations.

Sections 7 and 8 make lessees and buyers of a factory responsible for maintaining and properly handing over the registers when a factory is leased or its ownership transferred, with a fine up to fifty rupees for defaults. Section 9 sets structural requirements for new ginning factories, such as separate entrances and exits for unginned and ginned cotton and government-approved construction plans, with a fine up to one hundred rupees for non-compliance and further fines up to fifty rupees per day if ordered alterations aren't carried out. Section 10 makes company directors and officers personally liable for a company's offences under the Act if they knowingly allowed the default.

Section 11 requires prosecutions to have the prior sanction of the District Magistrate, and only a Magistrate of the first class or higher may try offences under the Act. Sections 12 and 13 let the Federal and Provincial Governments make detailed rules on bale marking, weights and scales, registers, returns, and inspection powers. Section 14 lets a buyer under a cotton purchase contract insist on receiving only bales that carry the required marking. Section 15 protects people acting in good faith under the Act from suits or legal proceedings.

This is a colonial-era statute originally passed in 1925 and amended through at least 1942 per the footnotes in the text; all the fine amounts noted above (fifty, one hundred, and five hundred rupees) reflect 1920s-1940s values, so readers should check the current official text for whether these figures have since been revised and whether the Act remains actively enforced.