SURESH KUMAR Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Learned counsel for the petitioners relies upon three judgments of coordinate Benches of this court, as also a judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Aneeta Hada v. M/s. Godfather Travels and Tours Pvt. Ltd., 2012 2 RAJ 562, to contend that where the company or partnership firm itself has not been impleaded as a respondent in the complaint filed, proceedings against the directors/partners/other officers and officials of the company or partnership, cannot be sustained. As such, in the present case, where, though a partner of M/s. Shivalik Agro Chemicals, Mohali, and its Chief Chemist, have been impleaded as respondents in the complaint filed before the trial court, the firm itself not having been impleaded, proceedings cannot be sustained. Mr. Anil Chaudhary, learned D.A.G., Punjab, submits that the explanation to Section 33 of the Insecticides Act, 1968, states that for the purpose of the said Section, the company would mean any body corporate and would include a firm 'or other association of individuals'. He further submits that the petitioners would be covered by the last phrase, i.e. 'or other association of individuals'.

(2.) This, obviously, cannot be the interpretation given to the said phrase, in view of the fact that this phrase is intended to cover any other association, which is not a company or a firm. In the present case, it is a firm, i.e. M/s. Shivalik Agro Chemicals, Mohali, which had manufactured the insecticides, which has, admittedly, not been impleaded as party in the complaint (Annexure P-1). Section 33 of the Insecticides Act, 1968, is reproduced further down in this judgment and it obviously applies to both, Companies and Firms, as can be seen from clause (a) of the Explanation given in the provision itself.

(3.) It has been held in Aneeta Hada's case , which dealt with the provisions of Section 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, as also with Section 10 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, that arraying of only a person/s incharge of the company, without arraying the company itself, is not permissible.