STATE OF PUNJAB Vs. SHER SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this appeal by the State against the acquittal of Sher Singh respondent in relation to an offence under Section 16 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act recorded by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ferozepore, by his judgment dated February 6, 1980, the only point for determination is whether cognizance of the offence had been properly taken on a complaint filed by the Senior Medical Officer, Ferozepore, while acting as a Food Inspector. The trial Court took this view that the complainant could not be taken to be an authorised officer on the basis of the Health Department notification dated October 13, 1966. In the face of this notification the complainant should have been Chief Medical Officer, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Medical Officer, Incharge, District, Sub Divisional or Tehsil Hospital, Primary Health Centre, Primary Health Unit or /Rural Dispensary. It seems that when the notification was issued there was no such officer in the Health Department who may have been designated as a Senior Medical Officer and for that reason such an officer was not invested with the powers of a Food Inspector. It was a sample of milk had been obtained by the complainant from the respondent on July 11, 1978, at Ferozepore which was subsequently found to be adulterated. The trial Court correctly took this view that a Senior Medical Officer could not act as a Food Inspector for taking action under Section 20 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. It was urged by the learned State counsel that a Senior Medical Officer is also a Medical Officer incharge of some hospital and for that reason he would be covered by the notification by taking him to be a Medical Officer incharge of some hospital. All types of Medical Officer have not been given the powers of Food Inspectors and for that reason the specific conferment of powers on Senior Medical Officers as Food Inspectors was required to enable them to perform certain duties under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act.

(2.) THE learned State counsel then pointed out that under the proviso to Section 20 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act the prosecution for an offence under the Act could also be instituted by a purchaser referred to in Section 12 thereof if he produced in Court a copy of the report of the Public Analyst alongwith the complaint. Such a report had in fact been filed with the complaint and thus it was urged that the complainant should be taken to be a private purchaser and for that reason cognizance of the offence should be held to have been properly taken by the Magistrate. By virtue of Section 12 of the said Act two categories were made of the persons who could take action and it says that nothing contained in the Act shall be held to prevent a purchaser of any article of Food other than a Food Inspector for having such article analysed from the Public analyst. The complainant has specifically acted in the present case as a Food Inspector and not as an ordinary purchaser. We do not consider it proper that after the complainant had failed to show himself as a Food Inspector the proceedings should still be held to be valid by considering him to be a purchaser. If such a view as canvassed by the learned state counsel were to be taken, the provision contained in Section 20 of the Act in relation to the cognizance of the offences would lost all meaning.

(3.) WE thus do not see any force in the present appeal and the same is dismissed. Agreed by S.S. Dewan, J. Appeal dismissed.