ARUMUGHAM Vs. FOOD INSPECTOR PERIA NAGAMAM COIMBATORE DISTRICT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Counsel for the revision petitioner as well as the respondent are absent.

(2.) THIS revision case has been preferred by A-2 against the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge of Coimbatore, confirming the conviction and sentence of A-2 in S.T.R. No. 37 of 1978 on the file of the Court of the Sub-Divi-sional Judicial Magistrate, Poilachi. The complaint against the revision petitioner and another accused, who was A-1, was laid by the Food Inspector Peria Nagamam Town Panchayat. The complaint against A-2 was that he committed an offence punishable under sections 7(i) and 2(i)(a)(1) read with section 16(1)(a)(i) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (to be referred to hereafter as the Act), on the allegation that he had in his possession and sold at 3.30 p.m. on 27th September, 1977 to P.W. 1 the Food Inspector, 660 ml. of milk on his being served with a notice under Form VI and issued the receipt Exhibit P-2 P.W. 1 divided the milk into three equal parts and poured each of them in a bottle and added drops of formalin to each bottles. It does not appear from the evidence of P.W.1 that the bottles were either empty or dry or clean. Thereafter, he corked the bottles and sealed them and obtained the signature ofA-2 on the labels fixed on the cover of each bottle. He sent one such sample bottle to the Public Analyst under Form No. VII (Exhibit P-3). The Public Analyst reported that the result of the analysis done by him showed that the fat content of the sample was 6.5 per cent. and solids-not-fat 7.7 per cent. a freezing point 0.470-C, where as the buffalo milk has a freezing point of 0.535-C. He was, therefore, of the opinion that the sample contained 10 per cent. of added water as calculated from the freezing point. The sample contained 7.7 per cent. solids-not-fat, whereas the solids-not-fat corresponding to a freezing point of 0.535-C works out to 8.6 per cent for the original milk from which the sample has been prepared by adding water. Thereafter, the complaint was filed, a notice under section 13(2) of the Act was sent to the accused. These facts have been spoken to by P.W.1 and accepted by the Courts below.

(3.) THIS revision has to be allowed on account of the failure of the Food Inspector to observe the necessary formalities, and if he had done, so because of his failure to prove that he observed the necessary formalities. As noted already, the Food Inspector (P.W.1) does not say that the bottles in which he poured the three parts of milk were clean, empty and dry. There is nothing to show that there was no water in the three bottles already when he poured the milk into each of them.