BANSHIDHARI MANNA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two revisional applications have been heard together since one of the points involved in common to both of them. The point so involved is as to whether an offence under Section 16(1) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (hereinafter referred to as the Principal Act), if committed prior to the Prevention of Food Adulteration (Amendment) Act (No.34 of 1976) (hereinafter referred to as the Central Amendment of 1976) would be punishable and triable in the manner prescribed by the Central Amendment of 1976 as aforesaid, or in accordance with the provisions of the Principal Act as they stood applicable to West Bengal prior to such amendment. It would be necessary to refer to the facts of the two cases to appreciate how the point arises and they are shortly set out as hereunder.

(2.) In the case of Banshidhari Manna, the said petitioner had a grocery shop at Village Bahadurpur, Poice Station Garbeta, District Midnapore. On November 22, 1974, a food-inspector visited his grocery shop and purchased a quantity of mustard oil and sent the same to a public analyst for analysis. On such analysis the mustard oil was found to be adulterated. On September 6, 1975, a complaint was lodged as against the petitioner for having committed an offence under Section 16(1) of the said Act. The petitioner was summoned by the learned sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate who ultimately committed him to the Court of Sessions since at the relevant time on the West Bengal Amendment of the Principal Act, such an offence being punishable with imprisonment which may extend to life as exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions. The learned Judge in the Court of Sessions framed a charge which being read over and explained to the accused-petitioner he pleaded not guilty. In the meantime, the Central Amendment of 1976 came into effect with effect from April 1, 1976. Since by this amendment there was material alteration of the quantum of penalty for offences under Section 16(1) of the said Act, and since a new procedure was prescribed for trial of such offences by a Judicial Magistrate of the First Class specially empowered in this behalf by the State Government or by a Metropolitan Magistrate, the petitioner raised an objection by filing a petition that the case can longer be triable by the Court of Sessions and must be sent back for trial by the Judicial Magistrate.

(3.) This objection was overruled by the learned Sessions Judge on the view that when the petitioner had not raised any such an objection prior to the framing of charges he cannot do so at that stage and he further accepted the contention of the Public Prosecutor that in any event, the petitioner's trial before the Court of Sessions would not result in any prejudice to him. The objection of the petitioner having been thus overruled by the order, as aforesaid, the petitioner is challenging the said order in a revisional application before this Court contending once more that after the Central Amendment of 1976, as aforesaid, the maximum penalty for such offences having been reduced to three to six years the case is no longer triable by the Court of Sessions and if at all, it would be triable by a Judicial Magistrate of the First Class specially empowered by the State Government.