THE CROWN PROSECUTOR Vs. V.R. RAMANATHA AIYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the Provincial Government against the acquittal by the Chief Presidency Magistrate of the respondent on a charge framed under Rule 28 -B of the Madras Prevention of Adulteration Rules, 1932, framed under the Prevention of Adulteration Act. The respondent is the Proprietor of a restaurant known as "The Ramakrishna Lunch Home" in China Bazar Road, Madras. He makes and sells a sweetmeat called jangiri. The ingredients of jangiri are blackgram, rice and sugar. The sweetmeat is generally made by frying the ingredients in ghee. It is said that in some hotels oil is used for this purpose. On the 25th February, 1944, a Food Inspector visited the respondent's restaurant and purchased a quantity of jangiri which was then being offered for sale. He had a sample analysed by the Public Analyst of the Corporation of Madras, who found that the fat used for cooking this particular jangiri consisted of 50 per cent. ghee and 50 per cent, fat not derived from milk or cream.

(2.) RULE 28 -B says that where in a hotel, shop or other place sweetmeats, savouries or other articles of food of which ghee is commonly an ingredient are for sale and are prepared wholly or in part with a mixture referred to in Rule 28 or with oil or fat other than ghee, there shall be exhibited in the hotel, shop or other place one or more notices of such size and so placed as to be visible and clearly legible to any customer at the time of purchase that the sweetmeats, savouries, or other articles of food are not made of ghee. There was no such notice exhibited in the respondent's restaurant and consequently it is said that he infringed this rule. The Chief Presidency Magistrate held that ghee or oil or other fatty substance used for frying jangiri is not an ingredient of the sweetmeat and consequently he acquitted the respondent.

(3.) WE agree with the Chief Presidency Magistrate that the material used for cooking jangiri is not an ingredient. The ingredients are blackgram, rice and sugar and they have to be cooked together in order to make jangiri; but this does not mean that the cooking material is part of the sweetmeat. No doubt some of the cooking material does penetrate into the jangiri but that does not make it an ingredient. If the argument advanced by the Crown Prosecutor were to he accepted, it would mean that the fat used in frying fish must be regarded as an ingredient of the fish.