PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. NAGALLA SESHAGIRI RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this appeal by the Crown, the decision depends upon the construction of E. 27-A of the Rules made under Section 20 (2) (f), Madras Prevention of Adulteration Act and its application to the facts of the case, which are not in dispute.

(2.) THE Sanitary Inspector employed by the Guntur Municipality sent his mistri on 80th July 1946 to the shop of the accused to find out if accused was selling gingelly oil. The result of the inquiry was that the accused said that he had ground-nut oil with him. The Inspector took from him a sample of the oil, He sent the oil for analysis and the Government Analyst, Guindy, reported that the sample contained 25 per cent, of ground-nut oil and 75 per cent, of gingelly oil. The accused was thereupon prosecuted for an offence of contravening e. 27-A which is as follows:

(3.) THE entire basis of the argument of Mr. Ramanarasu who argued the case for the accused with great resourcefulness was that the sample of the oil sold to the Sanitary Inspector was sold as ground-nut oil, According to him, that would make ground-nut oil, as it were, the base with which any other oil like gingelly oil, in this instance, is added. In my opinion that is not the proper way of construing the rule. The oil as it actually was, at the time it was kept for sale, cannot properly be said to be either ground, nut oil or gingelly oil. It was certainly a mixture of both. In this case the Magistrate thought that the added substance was gingelly oil, I am unable to follow why. Even from the point o view of the relative proportion, gingelly oil waa 75 per cent, whereas ground-nut oil was only 25 percent. The Magistrate thought that the action of the accused in selling this mixture as ground-nut oil at a distinct loss was unnatural and mysterious. The mystery is because the one instance of the sale of the sample oil to the Sanitary Inspector as ground-nut oil was taken as the criterion. I agree with the Magistrate that it is impossible to believe that any merchant in his senses would make a mixture of gingelly oil and ground-nut oil in the proportion found in this case and sell it as ground nut oil which costs less. The obvious inference is that though for reasons which can easily be comprehended the particular sample in question was sold to the officer as ground-nut oil, the accused was having this mixture to be sold as gingelly oil which certainly costs more.