RAM PRASAD SAH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has been convicted under Section 7, Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act, read with Clause 3, Bihar Food grains Control Order, 1950, and has been sentenced to undergo Simple imprisonment for three and half years and to pay a fine of Rs. 11,878-7-0, in default of the payment of fine to undergo simple imprisonment for a further period of one year, and the foodgrains recovered from the shop of the appellant in excess of the prescribed maxim has also been forfeited to the Government.

(2.) The prosecution case is that on 22-6-1951, the grain-shop of the appellant in the town of Chapra was raided by the A. D. S. O., and other officers of the Rationing Department. When the shop was searched in presence of some persons of the neighbourhood, fifteen maunds 10 1/4 'seers of China rice, 7 maunds 1 seer of red wheat and 6 maunds 6 seers of rice were recovered. All these articles of food were controlled ones, and the appellant had no licence for selling them. After the seizure of articles from the shop, a notice was issued to the appellant to show cause why he should not be prosecuted, and in response to the notice he showed cause by filing an application on 2-7-1951. After a consideration of the show-cause petition filed by the appellant and after a preliminary enquiry, the appellant was put on trial for having committed an offence for which he has been convicted.

(3.) The only defence taken by the appellant at the trial was that the shop did not belong to him.