SWANTRAJ Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Every legislation is a social document and judicial construction seeks to decipher the statutory mission, *(1) language permitting taking the cue from the rule in Heydon's case of suppressing the evil and advancing the remedy. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 (the Act, for short) is a life-saving statute one of the provisions of which, together with a bunch of rules and forms, falls for interpretation and application to the substantially admitted facts set out concisely in the order granting certificate of fitness to appeal. The Bench projected the factual-legal issue in these words:-

(2.) The appellant has been concurrently convicted but hopefully challenged S. 18(c) of the Act forbids manufacture for sale, or sell or stock or exhibit for sale, or distribute any drug without licence under this Chapter (Ch. IV), S. 27 (b) is the penal provision for contravention of the provisions of Ch. IV of the Act or the Rules made thereunder. Rule 62 is claimed to have been violated and so may be read here together with the sister rule, i.e. R. 61:

(3.) The appellant is a wholesale dealer and distributor and has a licence for his Bombay shop in Form 20-B and another in Form 21-B, one for drugs specified in C and C (1) Schedules and the other for other drugs (Exs. 37 and 38). The firm has one more licence issued under Rule 61 (2) in Form 21-B authorising it to sell, stock or exhibit for sale or distribute by wholesale on the premises situated at Through Station Wagon No. MHR 1279 in the State of Maharashtra, the following categories of drugs specified in Schedules C and C (1) to the Drug Rules, 1945:-