ASHOK KUMAR Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was prosecuted for an offence under section 7/16 of the prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (for short the Act) as a sequel to lifting of some sample of mustard oil from the premises known as shop No. I, Jawala Heri Market, Paschim Puri, New Delhi on 7th September. 1979. The trial court on the basis of the evidence adduced by the prosecution held the charge proved against the petitioner and after recording a finding of guilt, sentenced him to R.I. for one year, besides a fine of Rs. 3,000.00 , sentence in default of payment of fine being R.I. for three months. On appeal being filed, whereas the conviction was maintained, but the substantive imprisonment of R.I. for one year was reduced to six months and the fine from Rs. 3,000.00 to Rs. l,000.00 , the sentence in default of payment of fine remaining the same.

(2.) It is stated that the accused/petitioner paid the fine as imposed by the trial court and subsequently as a result of reduction in the quantum of fine by the appellate court, he got refund of the excess amount. cc There is a challenge to the findings of the courts below on facts as also on points of law in this revision petition. Mr. R.N. Mittal appearing for the petitioner has concentrated on one point of law which, according to him goes to the root of the matter and vitiated the prosecution and trial of the petitioner. According to the learned counsel, under the provisions of section 20, the sanction of the competent authority is mandatory before a person can be prosecuted under the provisions of this Act. He contends that in this case though the sanction purports to be there, but in effect it is completely vitiated due to non-application of mind and amere look on the same will reveal that it has been recorded in a mechanical manner without any application of mind. He has placed reliance on a recent judgment of this court, which is on all fours with the present case, and which in turn is based on three previous judgments of this Court including two Division Bench judgments.

(3.) In this case, namely. Miss Shakun v. Delhi Administration, Delhi, 1989(2) DELHI LAWYER 305, after taking note of the earlier decisions of this Court and on a perusal of the sanction, which was the basis of the prosecution in that case, it was held that where the sanction was contained in a cyclostyled proforma with name of the accused person in typing and also other particulars, such as description of the sample, the date of lifting of the sample, and name of the Food Inspector were all inserted, and there was no reference even to the fact that the sanctioning authority had gone into the report of the Puic Analyst, then sanction could not be said to be a valid sanction in terms of section 20 of the Act. It was further noticed that the sanctioning authority had not been examined in court so as to state that the said authority had all the material before him, and the sanction had been recorded after going through the records of the case and full application of mind. It was held as a result that it was a case where no valid consent or sanction for prosecution could be held to have been recorded and in view of the fact that this consent was prerequisite for institution of a prosecution against an accused in view of the provisions of section 20 of the Act, the prosecution itself stands vitiated and liable to be quashed.