The High Court dismissed the State's criminal revision challenging an order of discharge in a food adulteration trial. It held there was no illegality or impropriety in the lower court's order finding no grounds for interference.
Discharge order framed by the lower court was upheld and no revision allowed.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
Court No. - 86
Case :- CRIMINAL REVISION No. - 3785 of 2012
Revisionist :- State of U.P. Opposite Party :- Jaswant And Others Counsel for Revisionist :- Govt. Advocate Counsel for Opposite Party :- N.K. Singh Yadav,Sunil Vashisth
Hon'ble Umesh Kumar,J.
Heard learned A.G.A. appearing for the revisionist-State and Sri Sunil Vashisth, learned counsel for the opposite parties and perused the material placed on record.
Instant criminal revision under Sections 397/401 Cr.P.C. has been filed by the State of U.P. against order of discharge dated 18.04.2012 passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge, Court No.5, District Meerut in Sessions Trial No.1189 of 2011 (State of U.P. Versus Jaswant Singh and others) arising out of Case Crime No.352 of 2009 under Sections 272 and 273 I.P.C., Police Station Saoorpur, District Meerut whereby learned Additional District and Sessions Judge, Meerut has discharged the accused persons.
It is argued by the learned A.G.A. appearing for State-revisionist that vide impugned order dated 18.04.2012, though report of the public analysts is to the effect that the seized Mawa was adulterated but all the opposite parties have been discharged of the charges under Sections 272 and 273 I.P.C. The order of discharge has been passed in complete violation of the provisions relating to the discharge and hence the order of discharge is wholly illegal and is not sustainable in the eyes of law. It is next argued that there were sufficient material on record for framing the charges against the accused-opposite parties but the court below in a most perfunctory manner has discharged them. Therefore, the impugned order passed by the court below may be quashed.
Learned counsel for the opposite party no.2 to 8 has argued that in view of provisions of Sections 41 and 42 of Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the police has no right to search any place, seize any article of food or adulterant. There is also no report of public analyst that the seized article was found harmful for human consumption rather the public analyst has submitted vague report to the effect that it is adulterated. Therefore, the order of the court below discharging the opposite parties under aforesaid sections is a just, proper and legal order and it does not call for any interference by this Court.
There are certain ingredients which are required for constituting an offence under Section 272 IPC. Similarly Section 273 requires certain ingredients to be fulfilled before the offence of adulteration can be said to be made. The ingredients are " that somebody selling food article or drinks which has been rendered noxious/unfit for consumption, with such knowledge or having reasons to believe that the same is a noxious food item. To put it differently, Sections 272/273 IPC are only attracted if it is shown that the adulteration is deliberate, intentional or with knowledge.
For the discussion made above, prayer for quashing or setting aside the
impugned order is refused as I do not see any illegality, impropriety and incorrectness in the impugned order or the proceedings under challenge. The order of discharge passed by the court below is just,proper and well discussed and does not warrant any interference by this Court.
The revision lacks merit and it is, accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 16.7.2021 MN/-
2 issues framed by the court
Whether an order of discharge in a food adulteration case calling for public analysis report necessitates interference by the court in revision.
Whether the non-mention of harm to human consumption in the public analyst's report warrants quashing the discharge order under IPC sections 272/273.
3 provisions across 3 enactments
State of U.P.
Jaswant And Others
Umesh Kumar
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
