Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd. vs The State Of Maharashtra & Anr.

Heard finally by consent of the learned counsel appearing for the parties.

The applicant seeks quashing of the First Information Report bearing Crime No.1325/2017 registered with Police Station, Wadgaon Road, District Yavatmal for the offences punishable under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, “IPC”) read with Section 13 of the Maharashtra Cotton Seeds (Regulation of supply, distribution, sale and fixation of sale price) Act, 2009 (for short, “Act of 2009”) as well as consequent proceedings arising out of the said FIR.

Police Station, Wadgaon Raod, District Yavatmal, registered an offence punishable under Section 420 of the IPC read with Section 13 of the Act of 2009 vide Crime No.1325/2017 against the applicant on the basis of the complaint made by one of the farmers affected by the sub-standard quality of seeds allegedly sold by the applicant. This complaint was received by non-applicant no.2– Agricultural Officer – Kailash Wankhade, who in turn, reported the matter to the Police and accordingly, this offence came to be registered against the applicant.

Upon going through the allegations made in the FIR, it can be seen that the basis of the allegation is that the Company had sold the seeds representing them to be a variety which is genetically modified, which had the capacity to robustly resist attack from Pink Bollworm. However, when the seeds were sown by the farmer and the plants sprouted, it was noticed that most of the seeds could not resist attack from the said worm and got spoiled because of the large scale infestation of the samplings. When the matter was reported to the Agricultural Officer, the Agricultural Officer made an enquiry into the matter and found that the seeds were of sub-standard quality and that was the reason why there was such a large scale attack of the Bollworm. The gist of the allegations is that even though the seeds were sold as B.T.Cotton variety, the saplings that sprouted from the seeds were not resistant to Pink Bollworm, as was expected of them and this is how the farmer was cheated by the Applicant.

The allegations against the applicant are primarily under Section 420 of the IPC, which reads as under:

The essential ingredients of the offence of “cheating” are as follows: (i) deception of a person either by making a false or misleading representation or by dishonest concealment or by any other act or omission; (ii) fraudulent or dishonest inducement of that person to either deliver any property or to consent to the retention thereof by any person or to intentionally induce that person so deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would not do or omit if he were not so deceived; and (iii) such act or omission causing or is likely to cause damage or harm to that person in body, mind, reputation or property. To constitute an offence under Section 420, there should not only be cheating, but as a consequence of such cheating, the accused should have dishonestly induced the person deceived: (i) to deliver any property to any person, or (ii) to make, alter or destroy wholly or in part a valuable security (or anything signed or sealed and which is capable of being converted into a valuable security).

In the present case, from the allegations made against the applicant, I do not find that there was any intention on the part of the applicant since the inception of the transaction to deceive the farmer. It is not alleged that the applicant knew that the seeds that it was selling had no capacity to effectively resist Bollworm and yet, it sold them in order to earn profits. It is also not the case that the seeds that were sold by the applicant were ordinary seeds and not of the variety of B.T.cotton. There is no allegation to the effect that the seeds that were sold were of ordinary quality as against the promise made of the seeds being B.T. Cotton variety. It is also not the allegation that in the name of seeds, the farmer received some stones or seeds of some different plants. In order to attract Section 420 of the IPC, there should have been some positive statement of the part on the complainant that the applicant knew that the seeds will not be able to deal with pink bollworn and even then, it fraudulently induced the complainant to buy the same, which is completely missing from the record. Thus, it is clear that essential ingredients of Section 420 of the IPC are not constituted even when the allegations are accepted at their face value. Therefore, no offence punishable under Section 420 of the IPC could have been registered against the applicant and no investigation for such an offence would have been permissible.

So far as the offence punishable under Section 13 (2) of the Act of 2009 is concerned, it is not in dispute that the cognizance of this offence can be taken by a Court only upon a complaint filed by the Controller of the Seeds, who as per the Rules, is the Seeds Inspector.

Since, no offence punishable under Section 420 of IPC is made out in the present case, if any investigation or any enquiry is to be made in relation to the offence under the provisions of the Act of 2009 it would have to be done only by the Seeds Inspector and not by the Police Officer.

In this view of the matter, a case is made out to exercise the inherent powers of this Court to quash the FIR. Hence, the following order is passed: