PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. MODI KONDAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the Public Prosecutor against the acquittal of the respondent by the Stationary Sub-Magistrate of Narsapur of the alleged offence of adulterating milk, an offence punishable under Rule 29 of the rules framed under the Madras Prevention of Adulteration Act, 1918 (hereinafter called the Act). As the respondent was not represented and the matter was of some public importance, Mr. B. T. Sundararajan was appointed amicus curiae and I am obliged to him for the valuable assistance rendered by him.

(2.) The case brought by the Municipality of Palacole against the respondent who is a milk vendor, was that he was in possession, for the purpose of sale, of buffalo's milk which had been adulterated by the addition of 13 per cent, of water. A sample of the milk was obtained by the Sanitary Inspector, P.W. 1 who, aftre complying with the prescribed formalities, sent it to the Government Analyst who in his certificate Ex. F, gave the opinion that the sample sent to him contained milk which had been deprived of fat to the extent of at least 61 per cent, and that the proportion of the milk was not more than 87 per cent, while the added water was at least 13 per cent. He also stated in his opinion that the sample contained only 1.5 per cent, of milk fat and 7.8 per cent, of milk solids other than milk fat, as against the prescribed percentage of 4.5 per cent, of milk fat and 9 per cent, of milk solids. The accused merely denied the offence although at a later stage he also pleaded that the milk belonged to Vanga Ramamurthi under whose orders he was delivering it to P.W. 3's coffee hotel. That plea was rightly rejected by the Magistrate. The Magistrate found it established in the evidence that the milk which was supplied to P.W. 3 by the respondent and whose sample was taken by the Sanitary Inspector P.W. 1 was boiled milk and not raw milk. He was of the view that before and during boiling it was necessary to add water to prevent the milk boiling over and that therefore the adulteration in this case of 13 per cent, of water was not " to increase the bulk or measure or to debase the quality of milk." He found that the accused could not be "classed with milk vendors who sell raw milk fraudulently added with water to increase its measure", and in that view, he acquitted the accused.

(3.) It must, at the outset, be pointed out that the Magistrate was not justified in introducing as a rest of liability the purpose for which adulteration was effected and further of importing into it the element of an intention to commit fraud. The material previsions do not postulate that for establishing the offence of adulteration it's either necessary to prove that the intention was to icrease the bulk or measure or to debase the quality or that the intention w as of a fraudulent nature. In another place in his judgment, the learned Magistrate seems to express the view that since in this case it is not raw milk but hot milk that was being sold, the provisions of the Act did not apply. It is against this view of the Magistrate that the present appeal is essentially directed.