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Judgment
This petition is filed under S. 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to quash the criminal prosecution launched against the petitioners in S.T.C. No. 135 of 1992 on the file of the I Addl. Judicial First Class Magistrate, Warangal.
The prosecution is launched for the violation of the provisions of Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976, and the rules of Weights and Measures (Packed Commodities) Rules, 1977. Concisely the case is that the commodity in question i.e., Tenor in Eles tablets with a composition of Atenolol is being packed with fourteen tablets instead of multiples of five as contemplated under Schedule-VI which is appended to Rule 13(5) of Weights and Measures (Packed Commodities) Rules, 1977. Sub-Rule (5) of Rule 13 of Weights and Measures (Packed Commodities) Rules, 1977, reads as follows :-
"...... When any commodity is packed by number, such number shall be expressed on the package in international form of Indian numerals, and every package intended to be sold by number shall be packed in the manner specified in the Sixth Schedule."
Schedule-VI of Weights and Measures (Packed Commodities) Rules, 1977, specifies as follows :-
"The manner in which commodities intended to be sold by number shall be packed.
(a) where the number is less than ten, by the integral number;
(b) where the number exceeds ten but does not exceed one hundred, in multiple of five;
(c) to (e).........."
If the interpretation placed by the prosecution that commodity is a tablet then the prosecution is correctly laid. But on the other hand if the contention of Mr. C. Padmanabha Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioners is accepted, that commodity in the instant case is a unit of fourteen tablets and not a single tablet and as such package should consist of fourteen tablets then the fourteen tablets in a strip is construed as a single unit. He relies upon the definition contained under sub-section (b) of S. 2 of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976, to the effect that "commodity in packed form" means commodity packaged, whether in any bottle, tin, wrapper or otherwise, in units suitable for sale, whether wholesale or retail. Construing each strip of fourteen tablets as a unit, the package contains twelve such strips printing the necessary declaration as contemplated under law such as, the components, the weight, the price, the batch number, the manufacturing date, the expiry date etc. These conform to the rules, and the interpretation placed by the prosecution is incorrect. But Mr. K. Raja Reddy, Additional Public Prosecutor contends that this argument can be advanced before the court below also. But this is a matter which involves interpretation of a statute and interpreting the statute, I find that there is no infraction committed by the petitioners while packing the medicine concerned herein, as such any further process of prosecution causes hardship to the petitioners and, more so, in view of the fact that one is a manufacturer at a distant place, another one is a wholesaler and the third one is a retailer, scattered over in different parts of the country.
In the circumstances, the prosecution launched against the petitioners in S.T.C. No. 135 of 1992, is quashed. The criminal petition is allowed accordingly.
Petition allowed.