GOURANGA SI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Petitioner has been convicted under Section 16(1)(a)(i) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and sentenced to R.I. for six months.

(2.) THE prosecution case is that the Petitioner was selling dried fish in the weekly market, Keonjhargarh, on 2.7.1967 when the Food Inspector detected that the dried fish which the Petitioner was selling was infested with insects. The stock of fish was, therefore, seized and produced before the S.D.O. Keonjhar who directed its destruction. The defence was that the fish was seized from an old lady who happens to be the mother of the accused. She was selling the dried fish and the accused had nothing to do with it. D.w. 1 has been examined to support this defence plea. The Court below have, however, accepted the prosecution case. The three witnesses who came to support the case that it was the Petitioner and not his mother who was selling the dried fish consisted of the 'Food Inspector, a municipal employee and a constable who was on duty in the market area.

(3.) FROM these documents it would clearly appear that there is no indication that dried fish was being Bold by the Petitioner. "Decomposed fish" and "dried fish" are not synonymous terms. Fish when spoiled and no more eatable is said to be decomposed while when fish is processed by being given a treatment of salt and oil and is dried up it is a known variety of food different from fish.