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Judgment
J.B. Garg, J.
National Organic Chemicals Industry Limited has moved this petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure challenging the complaint under Sections 3(k)(i), 17, 18, 29 and 33 of the Insecticides Act, 1968, instituted by Sh. Hans Raj Vinaik, Insecticides Inspector, Abohar, District Ferozepur, pending in the Court of Judicial Magistrate Abohar.
The petitioner is having its registered office at Bombay and its branch office at 16 Parliament Street, New Delhi. It manufactures pesticides/insecticides including Aldrine 30 per cent having brand name Aldrex. On 29.12.1988, the complainant Insecticides Inspector, Abohar inspected the shop of M/s. Des Raj Satish Kumar, Abohar of whom Satish Kumar, accused No. 1 is the sole proprietor. The aforesaid Inspector took the sample of Aldrex of batch No. 0204 and date of its manufacture was 3.2.1988 and date of expiry was 2.2.1990. The Insecticides Laboratory, Ludhiana according to the report, Annexure P3, found the sample to be misbranded in respect of its percentage active ingredient contends and emulsion stability that the complaint has been instituted in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Abohar in which the present petitioner or in other words the manufacturer is one of the accused and here the petitioner has alleged that the complaint dated 28.8.1991 is liable to be quashed because the shelf life of the sample had already expired on 2.2.1990 and thus, a very valuable right guaranteed under Section 24(4) of the Insecticides Act of getting the sample reanalysed from Central Insecticide Laboratory has been denied, that the sanction of prosecution was accorded by the State Government on 13.5.1991 (Annexure P6) i.e., after more than one year and three months of the expiry of shelf life of the product and prosecution based on such sanction is void; that the prosecution of petitioner based on undated report (Annexure P3) is legally unsustainable that the sanction (Annexure P6) was issued in a mechanical manner without application of mind and merely the blank spaces have been filled in a cyclostyled form.
A perusal of the complaint, Annexure P7 shows that the sample was taken on 28.12.1988 whereas the date of its manufacture was 3.2.1988 and the date of its expiry was 2.2.1990. It is undisputed that the shelf life of the sample expired on 2.2.1990 much before the filing of the complaint which was instituted on 28.8.1991. In this situation, it is obvious that a valuable right guaranteed under Section 24(4) of the Insecticide Act of getting the sample reanalysed from Central Insecticide Laboratory was lost or in other words denied to the petitionermanufacturer.
The learned counsel for the petitioner has referred to National Organic Chemicals Industries Limited v. State of Haryana, 1992(1) Recent Criminal Reports 137 where also the sample of insecticide was collected by the complainant and it was found that the shelf life of the substance had already expired. A similar plea that the shelf life of the insecticide had expired and the accused had lost a valuable right of reanalysis was taken in U.B. Bukana, Assistant Marketing Manager, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer Co. Ltd. Amritsar v. State of Punjab, 1993(1) Recent Criminal Report 665 , referred to by the learned counsel for the petitioner. This factual position has not been controverted on behalf of the respondent.
The learned counsel for the petitioner has also referred to the sanction accorded under Section 27 of the Insecticide Act, 1968 (Annexure P6) and it has been rightly pointed out that it is mechanical and does not even mention the date on which the sample was purchased.
In view of the pleas pertaining to fact as well as law referred to above, the present petition succeeds and it is hereby accepted and the complaint in question instituted by State of Punjab through Sh. Hans Raj Vinaik, Agriculture InspectorcumInsecticide Inspector is hereby quashed as a whole.