RAMLAGAN SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has been convicted under Section 27 of the Drugs Act, 1940, for contravention of Clauses (a) (ii) and (c) of Section 18 of the same Act and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 150/-, or in default to suffer rigorous imprisonment for three months.

(2.) Admittedly, the petitioner is the owner of a homeopathic medicine shop known as Sathi Homeo Laboratory which is situated in Mohalla Bakerganj of Laheriasarai town. The prosecution case is that Shyam Sundar Prasad (P. W. 2), who was then the Inspector of Drugs, Tirhut Division, visited the petitioner's shop on the 12th March, 1955 and found 44 ampules o quinine bi hydro-chloride, 33 of them being with labels and 11 without labels. Shyam Sundar Prasad was transferred and Vishwanath Prasad Srivastava (P. W. 1) was appointed as Inspector of Drugs, Tirhut Division, in May 1954. He submitted a complaint dated the 14th April, 1955, which was received by the Sub-divisional Magistrate concerned on the 4th May, 1955. In due course, the petitioner was put upon his trial with the result which I have already mentioned.

(3.) The first point which Mr. Rameshwar Choudhary has taken on behalf of the petitioner is that the petitioner's trial must be held to be vitiated because an Inspector of Drugs alone can institute a prosecution under the Act and there is no material on the record to show that Vishwanath Prasad Srivastava (P. W. 1) was duly appointed as an Inspector. He has also contended that nothing outside the record can be looked into for this purpose. In support of these contentions, he has drawn our attention to the decision of a learned Single Judge of this Court in Abdul Hamid v. The State, 1955 BLJR 40.