MALEPATI NARAYANA Vs. STATION HOUSE OFFICER BADVEL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Station House Officer, Badwel has laid a charge sheet before the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Nandalur alleging offences punishable under Section 7 (1) (a) (ii) of the Essential Commodities Act against the petitioners. The particulars of the charge sheet were, that the first petitioner as the agent of the second petitioner, who is a retail dealer in Kerosene, is carrying on business in Kerosene under a licence at Badwel and that on 13-5-1968 the first petitioner sold seven tins of Kerosene at Rs. 11.50 per tin of 16.5 litres i.e., Re. 0.16 paise in cess per litre than the declared price for that area and thereby contravened Section 3 (a) of the Kerosene (Fixation of Ceiling Price) Order 1966 and Clause (9) of the Andhra Pradesh Kerosene (Licensing and Distribution) Order, 1965.

(2.) In the petition filed before us, the petitioners contended that the Station House Officer, Badwel is not competent to investigate and file a charge sheet, and so the proceedings started before the Magistrate should be quashed.

(3.) The short point for consideration is whether this contention can be upheld? At the outset we have to notice that offences punishable under the Essential Commodities Act 1955 are made cognizable by section 10A of the Act, which was introduced by the amending Act 36 of 1967 on 30/12/1967. By reason of this, prima facie Sec. 156 of Criminal Procedure Code would apply and an officer in charge of a police Station having jurisdiction would have the power to investigate into such an offence and file a charge sheet.