GUJARAT POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD Vs. AEGIES CHEMICALS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Criminal Revision Application at the instance of Mr. D. K. Solanki, Assistant Law Officer, "Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gandhinagar" is directed against the impugned judgment and order dated 30-8- 1993, rendered in Criminal Case No. 1362 of 1990 by the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Ahmedabad, whereby Messrs. Aegies Chemicals, a Partnership firm, having its factory situated at GIDC, Vatva, Ahmedabad and two of its partners, who came to be prosecuted for the alleged offences punishable under Secs. 43 and 44 read with Sec. 47 of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 were ordered to be "discharged" on the alleged ground that prima facie case was not made out.

(2.) Messrs. B. R. Gupta, the learned Advocate appearing for the Petitioner- Board and Mr. J. A. Shelat, the learned A.P.P. while challenging the impugned order, submitted that the same being ex-facie illegal and perverse, the same deserves to be quashed and set aside.

(3.) On going through the impugned judgment, it appears that the learned Magistrate has ordered discharge of the respondents on two grounds, viz., (i) that the report of the Board Analyst in respect of the trade effluent taken by the Board Officer is inadmissible in evidence in view of the alleged breach of the provisions of Sec. 21(3) and (5) of the Act. According to the learned Magistrate, the prosecution witness Mr. M. M. Raol, who collected the said sample of the trade effluent, has admitted in his cross-examination that he had orally asked Mr. P. M. Choksi, respondent No. 3 herein whether he wanted to divide sample of the trade effluent in question into two parts to which he had said no but regarding this denial, no note has been made in the inspection report. According to the learned Magistrate, Mr. M. M. Raol was expected to make such a note in the inspection report itself but since he has admittedly failed to do so, his oral version before the Court cannot be believed. (ii) That Mr. Raol while giving evidence before the Court has not stated a word about the seal applied to Kerba in his inspection report. This also according to the learned Magistrate was fatal to the prosecution as bare words of Mr. Raol in absence of the contemporaneous record cannot be relied upon.