B B NAGPAL Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, B. B. Nagpal, is the ex-company secretary of Montari Industries Ltd. (hereinafter described as "the company" ). The company is registered under the Companies Act, 1956, and manufactures insecticides and pesticides. Shri Brahm Singh Doohan, Insecticides Inspector, Kurukshetra, checked the premises of Farm Chemicals on June 18, 1988. Farm Chemicals was holding a licence issued by the Chief Agricultural Officer, Kurukshetra, for selling/stocking and exhibiting for sale insecticides. A sample was taken of phorate 10 G of batch No. 210 alleged to have been manufactured by the company. One part of the sample was got tested from the Quality Control Laboratory, Karnal. The report was submitted by the senior analyst. The sample was found to be misbranded. It did not conform to the ISI specifications in respect of its percentage of active ingredients. A complaint was made before the Judicial Magistrate.

(2.) AS per the petitioner, he was working as the secretary of the company and was responsible for secretarial functions of the company. He was not involved in the process of production. The petitioner seeks quashing of the complaint and the proceedings taken thereto.

(3.) IT is obvious from the aforesaid that when an offence has been allegedly committed by a company, then every person at the time the offence was committed, is responsible and deemed to be guilty of the offence provided he was in charge of or was responsible to the company for the conduct of the business of the company as such. Exhibit P-1 has been appended as the copy of the complaint filed and therein there is no allegation made that the petitioner was in charge or was responsible to the company. It has simply been asserted that the petitioner was the secretary of the company and is responsible for this offence. It is a conspicuously vague assertion and consequently it becomes difficult to artract Sub-section (1) to Section 33 of the Insecticides Act, 1968.