Vijay Kumar vs State of Punjab

Surinder Singh, J.

This Revision Petition has been filed by Vijay Kumar a Karyana shopkeeper of Mukerian against the concurrent decision of two Courts below, as per which the petitioner was convicted under section 7 read with section 16 (1) (a) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and was sentenced to three months Rigorous Imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 500/. In default of payment of fine, the petitioner was ordered to undergo further rigorous Imprisonment for one month.

The case of the prosecution is that on February 19,1982 at about 1 p.m., Shri Harbhajan Singh Saini, Government Food Inspector visited the shop of the petitioner along with Dr. Har Parkash Bhatia. Thirtyone closed polythene packets of edible common salt were lying in the shop for sale beside other articles of food. The Food Inspector, after disclosing his identity obtained three close packets of edible common salt from the petitioner by way of sample on payment of their price. The bags were labelled and were wrapped in strong thick papers. Paperslips were placed on these samples which were duly signed. The binding thread was thereafter sealed with seal impression of H.S. Saini. One of the sealed samples was forwarded to the Public Analyst on February 19, 1982 through an Office Peon and the remaining two parts of the sample were kept in depot with the Local Health Authority, Hoshiarpur. As per report of the Public Analyst, the sample conformed to the standards prescribed for common salt but did not contain iodine as required under the law. The sale of noniodised salt being prohibited in the District of Hoshiarpur, a complaint was lodged against the petitioner, as a result of which he was convicted and sentenced as already noticed.

The Revision Petition has to succeed on solitary submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioner. The contention is that during the course of examination of the petitioner the result of the chemical analysis of the salt was never put to him nor, in fact, was it alleged that salt in question was found to be not iodized, as required under the relevant Punjab Government Notification. It has, thus been justifiably argued that the nonputting of this vital circumstance to the accusedpetitioner caused him grave prejudice. In support of this argument, the learned counsel has placed reliance upon a decision of this Court reported as Ram Chander v. The State of Haryana, 1982 (II F.A.C. 331, wherein it was held that if a report of the Public Analyst and the contents thereof are not specifically put to the accused for the purpose of confronting him with the alleged adulteration, the conviction of the accused cannot be maintained and has to be set aside. The same view was expressed by a Division Bench of this Court earlier in, Municipal Committee Amritsar v. Om Parkash, 1969 P.L.R. 793. There is no effective answer to this submission.

It may be observed here that the sample in question was taken on as far back as February 19, 1982, and the prosecution was launched against the petitioner on May 11, 1982. The petitioner has undergone the agony of prosecution at the trial stage as well as at the appellate stage for about 21/2 years by now. In these circumstances, it would not be appropriate to order his retrial.

The result is that the Revision Petition succeeds and the judgments of both the Courts below convicting the petitioner and sentencing him under section 7 read with section 16 (1) (a) of the Food Adulteration Act, are set aside.

Revision allowed.