THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. Y. RAMACHANDRAYYA AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Public Prosecutor, Madras, appeals against the acquittal of the two respondents of an offence under Section 5(1)(b) of the Madras Prevention of Adulteration Act for having contravened the provisions of Rule 27 of the Rules framed under Section 20 (a)(f) of the same Act. The first respondent is the Secretary of the Co -operative Milk Society, Bapatla, and the second respondent, a salesman in that society. The learned Public Prosecutor did not press the case as regards the first respondent and his acquittal has therefore to be confirmed. As regards the second respondent, the case is that on the 19th October, 1946, he sold milk containing 12 per cent. of water to P.W. 1, the sanitary inspector and passed a receipt Ex. P -2. What happened was that when the second respondent was delivering a quantity of milk to one Mr. Venkatasubbayya, the proprietor of Maruthi Vilas Coffee Hotel, Bapatla, P.W. 1., came there, took out a quantity and paid the cost of it to the second respondent. This milk, when analysed by the Government Analyst, was found to contain 12 per cent. of water and on the strength of the Analyst's certificate, both the respondents were prosecuted. The Stationary Sub -Magistrate of Bapatla held that there was no sale of milk as contemplated by' the Madras Prevention of Adulteration Act and therefore acquitted both the respondents.

(2.) THE reason on which the lower Court found the respondents not guilty was that the milk society was a composite body consisting of a number of members of which the proprietor of the Maruthi Vilas Coffee Hotel was one and when the society was delivering milk to one of its members, it was not a sale as contemplated by the Act but the transaction was one by which an undivided joint owner of the entire assets of the society was being given his share of the milk and as such, in law it could only be a distribution of the article among the members which would not amount to a sale. For this contention the learned Sub -Magistrate relied upon a decision of this Court in the Public Prosecutor v. Srinivasarao, (1938) M.W.N. 317.

(3.) SECTION 20 of the Madras Co -operative Societies Act (VI of 1932), enacts that the registration of a society shall render it a body corporate by the name under which it is registered, with perpetual succession and a common seal, and with power to hold property, to enter into contracts, to institute and defend suits and other legal proceedings and to do all things necessary for the purpose for which it was constituted. This makes it clear that as a body corporate it has got a separate existence apart from its individual members and when an article belonging to this body corporate is transferred to one of its individual members for a consideration, it cannot be said that it does not amount to a sale under Section 4 of the Sale of Goods Act.