ARVIND NAGPAL Vs. STATE OF HARYANA AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been filed with a prayer that the complaint Anneuxre P-3 and the consequent summoning order Anneuxre P-1 by which the petitioner has been summoned to stand trial for having violated the provisions of Sec. 7 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), be quashed.

(2.) The petitioner who is the General Manager of the Company, denies his liability for having violated the provisions of Sec. 7 of the Act on the ground that the person incharge of the canteen from where the sample in question was taken, was one Pankaj Kumar Prahlad who was nominated by the Company under Sec. 17(2) of the Act and in this manner, the petitioner neither has any role, nor has any accountability in managing the affairs of the canteen. A perusal of Sec. 17 of the Act would show that where an offence has been committed by a company, the person, if any, who has been nominated under sub-section (2) to be the incharge and responsible to the company for the conduct of business of the company, has to be accountable in the eventuality of an offence being committed under the Act. Where no person has been so nominated, then every person who is the incharge and was responsible to the company for the conduct of its business, shall be liable. Sec. 17(2) therefore, clearly stipulates and envisions the liability of a person so nominated. A duty is also cast upon the company to intimate the local health authority about such nomination.

(3.) The relevant provision of Sec. 17 is extracted here below:-