In a leave to appeal against a food adulteration acquittal, the Single Judge dismissed the petition, upholding the lower court's decision that the accused was rightfully acquitted due to deficiencies in the sample's representativity as evidenced by conflicting laboratory reports.
The petition is dismissed; the order of acquittal is upheld.
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.
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versus SANJAY JAIN & ANR. ..... Respondent Through:
CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIPIN SANGHI
O R D E R % 04.08.2016
provisions of Section 2(ia)(a)(b)(m) & Rule 62 and Rule 32(e)(f) of PFA Rules, 1955. By the impugned judgment, the respondent/accused has been acquitted.
representative in character or that the Director, CFL found magnesium carbonate, an anticaking agent in violation of Rule 62, PFA Rules.
“12. Coming to the next controversy, i.e., with regard to the representativeness of the sample, it is clear from the Full Bench decision in MCD v. Bishan Sarup (supra) that if the samples are not representative, then any test report based on it would not indicate the true position. That being the case, a conviction cannot be founded on such a test report. Upon an examination of the cases mentioned by Mr Mittal, it also becomes clear that although in terms of Section 13(3) of the PFA Act, the Director's certificate would supersede the Public Analyst's report, the difference in the two can still be looked into by the courts for ascertaining as to whether the samples were representative or not. Mr Sharma had placed reliance on the Supreme Court decision in Calcutta Municipal Corporation (supra) and particularly on paragraph 14 thereof which reads as under:-
“14. Thus the legal impact of a certificate of the Director of Central Food Laboratory is three-fold. It annuls or replaces the report of the Public Analyst, it gains finality regarding the quality and standard of the food article involved in the case and it becomes irrefutable so far as the facts stated therein are concerned.”
13. A careful reading of the Supreme Court decision reveals that the certificate of the Director, CFL supersedes the report of the Public Analyst and is conclusive as regards the quality and standards of the sample tested. There is no quarrel with this and there can be none. But, this does not enable us to detract from the ratio of the Full Bench decision of this court in
the case of MCD v. Bishan Sarup (supra) that even after such a certificate is issued by the Director, CFL, it would still be open to the accused to establish, if he can do so on concrete grounds, that the sample tested was not a representative one. To this extent, the argument raised by Mr Sharma that once the certificate of the Director, CFL is obtained, then that is final and conclusive and the Public Analyst's report cannot be looked into at all for any purpose whatsoever, is not quite tenable. If the variation in the two reports is substantial enough, then the Public Analyst's report can certainly be looked into to establish this variation so as to support the contention of the petitioner that the sample was not representative. As indicated above, the Director, CFL who was examined as CW-1 in cross-examination, has clearly stated that if the content of common salt as quantified by the two experts would have a variation of more than 0.3%, then the samples would not be representative. This is an opinion of an expert and one has to go by it. In the facts of the present case, we find that the variation, as indicated above, is more than 0.3%. Therefore, on the facts of the present case, it can be said that the variation is beyond the acceptable range and would clearly imply that the samples were not representative. In view of this finding and in the background of the law which is well settled, no conviction can be sustained”. (Emphasis Supplied)
VIPIN SANGHI, J
AUGUST 04, 2016
3 issues framed by the court
Whether the High Court permit a leave to appeal against acquittal under Section 378(4) Cr.P.C. where initial appeal was filed in Sessions Court
Whether the learned court below was justified in acquitting the accused due to substandard representation of food sample based on variance in laboratory reports
Whether the variance in reports between Public Analyst and Director CFL regarding sample representative was substantial enough to warrant acquittal
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Subhash Chand v. State (Delhi Administration)Referred¶7
Subhash Chand v. State (Delhi Administration) (2013) 2 SCC 17 · Who else cites this
Kanshi Nath v. StateReferred¶13
Kanshi Nath v. State, 2005 (2) FAC 219
MCD v. Bishan SarupReferred¶14
MCD v. Bishan Sarup
Calcutta Municipal CorporationReferred¶14
Calcutta Municipal Corporation
4 provisions across 3 enactments
FOOD INSPECTOR
SANJAY JAIN & ANR.
VIPIN SANGHI
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
