In a criminal miscellaneous application, the Patna High Court quashed proceedings under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act against the petitioner, holding continued prosecution to be a gross abuse of court process.
Entire proceeding including order of cognizance dated 02.05.2007 set aside.
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.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA
Criminal Miscellaneous No. 56 of 2008
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Ashok Kumar Jain, S/o Bhanwarlal Jain Proprietor of M/s Zee Pharma, 323 Kalani Nagar, Aerodrame Road, Indore-5 (M.P.).
.... .... Petitioner/s Versus
.... .... Opposite Party/s
======================================================== Appearance : For the Petitioner/s : Mr. Ram Shankar, Adv.
For the Opposite Party/s : Mr. R.B. Roy “Raman”, APP
======================================================== CORAM: HONOURABLE JUSTICE SMT. ANJANA PRAKASH ORAL JUDGMENT
Date: 23-09-2013
Anjana Prakash, J. No one appears on behalf of the Opposite
Party No. 2.
The Petitioner seeks quashing of the entire proceeding including the order of cognizance dated 02.05.2007 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jahanabad in G.O. Case No. 28/2007 (Tr. No. 605/07).
The case of the Drug Inspector, Jahanabad is that when he took sample of a certain medicine manufactured by the Petitioner’s firm from Civil Surgeon, Jahanabad which had expired on 11.07. and on testing was not of standard quality.
The Petitioner submits that he is the proprietor of the firm named and styled as M/s Zee Pharma which had been granted license on 15.11.2000
Patna High Court Cr.Misc. No.56 of 2008 dt.23-09-2013
2
for manufacturing certain drugs. When he was noticed about the sub-standard quality of the medicine he had replied that the test report was not in accordance with the proper procedure and they had sent the medicines for analysis without following the procedure required under Section 25(2) and 23(4)(iii) Drugs and Cosmetics Act. However, despite such a show-cause the Petitioner is sought to be prosecuted.
Having gone through the nature of allegations as also the background, I will be inclined to hold that the continuance of the present prosecution is a gross abuse of the process of the Court and deserves to be set aside.
Considering the aforesaid, the application is allowed the entire proceeding including the order of cognizance dated 02.05.2007 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jahanabad in G.O. Case No. 28/2007 (Tr. No. 605/07) is, hereby, set aside.
The application stands allowed.
(Anjana Prakash, J.)
Patna High Court, Patna Dated, the 23rd September, 2013 NAFR/Vikash/-
1 issue framed by the court
Whether the prosecution proceedings should be quashed as being a gross abuse of the process of the court.
Ashok Kumar Jain
The State of Bihar
Rajesh Kumar
Anjana Prakash
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
