PREM BALLAB Vs. STATE DELHI ADMN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal, by special leave, is directed against a judgment of the High Court of Delhi confirming the conviction of the appellants under Section 7 (i) read with Section 16 (1) (a) (i) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.

(2.) THE prosecution case was that at all material times the 1st appellant was the owner of a grocery shop situate at Maharani Bagh, New Delhi and the 2nd appellant was employed as a salesman in the shop. On 23/06/1969 Bhanot, a Food Inspector went to the shop of the 1st appellant and finding the 1st appellant there as a salesman, took from him a sample of mustard oil for analysis after paying its purchase price. He divided the sample into three parts and sent one part to the Public Analyst for analysis, handed over the other part to the 2nd appellant and retained the 3rd part with him. THE Public Analyst reported that the sample was misbranded as Linseed oil and was adulterated due to the presence of artificial dye. On the strength of this report, the appellants were charge-sheeted under Section 7 (i) read with Section 16 (1) (a) (i) before the Judicial Magistrate, Delhi. THE defence of the 1st appellant was that the 2nd appellant was at no time engaged by him as the salesman and no mustard oil was purchased by Bhanot from the 2nd appellant. THE 2nd appellant also claimed that he was never an employee of the 1st appellant and while he was going to his house after purchasing sarson oil for his personal use, he was caught by two or three persons near Maharani Bagh and a sample was taken from the oil which he was carrying and his signatures were obtained by threat on certain papers. THE learned Judicial Magistrate accepted the evidence led on behalf of the prosecution and rejected the defence version and held that the appellants were guilty of the offence of selling linseed oil containing artificial dye which was an offence punishable under Sec. 7 (i) read with Section 16 (1) (a) (i). THE learned Judicial Magistrate accordingly convicted the appellants and sentenced each of them to suffer rigorous imprisonment for nine months and to pay a fine of Rupees 1000/-. THE appellants preferred an appeal, but the appeal was rejected by the learned Sessions Judge and the conviction was confirmed with only a slight modification in the sentence. THE sentence was reduced from nine months to six months rigorous imprisonment. This led to the filing of a revision application in the High Court by the appellants, but the revision application was also unsuccessful. Hence the present appeal by special leave obtained from this Court.

(3.) IT may be made clear at the out set that the different clauses of Section 2 (i) are not mutually exclusive. They overlap one another and, it is quite possible that an article of food may be found adulterated under two or more clauses of Section 2 (i). Take for example a case where an article of food contains a foreign substance which affects injuriously the quality thereof and at the same time renders it unfit for human consumption. Such a case would clearly fall within clauses (b) and (f) of Section 2 (i) and the article of food would be deemed to be adulterated under both these clauses. So also, a case may arise where a clouring matter not permitted under the rules is added to an article of food and such colouring matter affects injuriously the quality of the article of food and in such a case too more than one clause of Section 2 (i) would be attracted namely, clauses (b) and (j), These instances which we have given are merely by way of illustration and they show that merely because an article of food is covered by one clause of Section 2 (i), it does not exclude the applicability of another clause of the section: an article of food may be deemed to be adulterated under more than one clause of Section 2 (i). IT is, therefore, not a valid argument that because the present case falls under clause (1) of Section 2 (i), the applicability of clause (j) is ipso facto negatived and the case cannot come within that clause.