ARUN KUMAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants have been convicted u/s. 7 of the Essential Commodities Act and sentenced to R.I. for two and half years by a judgment dated 29.11.1994 passed by the Special Judge, Madhepura in Special case No.4 of 1988. The prosecution case is that on 12.12.1988 the accused persons were allegedly selling spurious D.A.P. fertilizer manufactured by Hindustan Leaver Limited and in proof of the same three bags were seized from their firm. The further allegation was that shops were not maintaining display board and two empty bags seized from the shop of Shankar Bhagat were duplicate and they were not original D.A.P. Paras fertilizer bags.

(2.) THE prosecution has examined seven witnesses in all. Out of whom, P.W.1, P.W.2 and P.W.3 are employees of Hindustan Leaver Limited and P.W.1 and P.W.2 were present at the time a raid was made by the police. P.W.6 and P.W.7 are formal witnesses, who are seizure list witnesses. P.W.4 has stated that he had put his signature on the seizure list, but the seizure had not been made in his presence. P.W.3 is not a witness on the point of occurrence and was a chemical examiner working under the Hindustan Leaver Limited and submitted a chemical report of the fertilizer seized from the shops of the appellants. P.W.4 is a Hawaldar of the Police Station, whereas P.W.5 is the Investigating Officer. Admittedly P.W.4, who was an important witness on the question of seizure of alleged spurious fertilizer, has not supported the case of the prosecution and, thus, the only material witnesses are P.W.1, P.W.2 and P.W.3, who are interested being the employees of Hindustan Leaver Limited. Moreover, it appears that there was no reason P.W.1, P.W.2 and P.W.3 should be present at the time of seizure of the fertilizer since they had no business to be present there which makes the prosecution case suspicious.

(3.) THE next material that has transpired against the appellants is that they had not produced any documents with regard to stock of the fertilizers stored in the shops. Since the fertilizer seized was much below the storage limit the allegation was without substance. The Trial Court disbelieved that the spurious fertilizer was recovered from the shop of the appellants. Moreover, the Investigating Officer has also stated in paragraph 10 of his deposition that the appellants had valid licence for sale of fertilizer. Under the circumstances, I am of the view that the prosecution has not been able to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt.