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Quashes Case Against Manager As Manufacturing Company Not Impleaded
The has quashed criminal proceedings under the against a dairy company manager, holding that under cannot be fastened upon an individual officer when the manufacturing company itself has not been arraigned as an accused.
Justice Uday Kumar observed that
"
is a
created by statute; it cannot exist in a vacuum or operate independently."
When Eight Packs of Packaged Lassi Triggered a Prosecution
The case traces back to , when a Food Safety Officer attached to the conducted an inspection of a retail food stall named "La-Fasta," situated between Platforms 3 and 4 of Bandel Railway Station in Hooghly. The officer purchased eight 200 ml Tetra Packs of Britannia Winkin Cow Thick Lassi (Lot No. 351044FA5, packaged on ) for ₹160 against a formal money receipt. The products had been manufactured by .
One portion of the seized sample was dispatched the following day to the for chemical and microbiological analysis. Although authorities maintained that the scientific evaluation was completed within the stipulated timeline, the formal analysis report was generated and communicated only on — 59 days after the sample reached the laboratory. The delay was attributed by the Food Analyst to heavy backlogs and staffing constraints arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report ultimately declared the product "" under , citing the presence of Escherichia coli and elevated coliform counts.
Following administrative sanction, a complaint was lodged before the , arraigning the stall handler, the stall owner, the marketer, and the present petitioner, Partha Sarathi Tripathy, in his individual capacity as Manager of the manufacturing unit. Crucially, — the corporate manufacturer itself — was conspicuously absent from the array of accused.
The Jurisdictional Fault Line: No Company, No
The High Court identified three questions for determination, the foremost being whether a prosecution under can survive when the principal corporate offender has not been made an accused.
Justice Kumar traced the statutory architecture of , which codifies the in corporate crimes: where an offense has been committed by a company, every person in charge of and responsible to the company for its business conduct, as well as the company itself , shall be deemed guilty.
"The commission of an offense by the company is the foundational
for attracting
against its officers or employees,"
the Court held.
"Unless the primary offender, the corporate body, is formally arraigned as an accused and its penal liability is brought into the lis, no derivative or
can be fastened upon its individual directors, managers, or employees."
The Court relied on the 's authoritative ruling in
, where a three-Judge Bench interpreting
held that
"
is imperative"
before
can attach to other categories of offenders. The principle was reaffirmed in
, and applied to the context by the in
.
Dismissing the prosecution's contention that describing the petitioner as
"The Manager, M/s. Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Pvt. Ltd."
satisfied the statutory mandate, the Court observed:
"Arraigning an officer by their official designation does not equate in law to impleading the corporate entity itself as a distinct
. This omission constitutes a
that strikes at the root of the prosecution."
Fifty-Nine Days That Undermined a Perishable Sample
The second question concerned the mandatory fourteen-day timeline under for delivery of the Food Analyst's report. The sample reached the laboratory on , yet the report was generated only on .
Acknowledging pandemic-related administrative hardships, the Court nevertheless stressed that such exigencies
"must be weighed against the stringent
designed to protect the rights of the accused, particularly in handling short-shelf-life perishable commodities."
"Food products, particularly fermented dairy products like lassi, are perishable commodities subject to rapid natural biological degradation and microbial evolution,"
the judgment noted. The 59-day hiatus created a
"substantial grey area regarding sample integrity"
and raised serious concerns about the petitioner's statutory right to seek re-analysis through a Referral Laboratory under
, a right articulated in
and
.
A Broken Procedural Chain
The Court additionally examined the statutory workflow under , which together establish an integrated, time-bound scheme governing inspection, reporting, evaluation, and sanction. The record revealed that this chain was "broken at multiple junctures" — the delayed analysis fractured the workflow under , and the file movement reflected a "mechanical transmission" rather than an independent, reasoned application of mind by the Designated Officer.
The Court also flagged a "significant jurisdictional gap" regarding the formal authorization of the Food Safety Officer, , to exercise statutory powers over a retail stall within railway premises without seamless integration into the local administrative jurisdiction of Hooghly district, as required under .
"A Flagrant
"
Concluding that the prosecution suffered from
"
, serious procedural non-compliance, and fatal prejudice caused by statutory delay,"
the Court allowed the
and quashed the proceedings in C.R. Case No. 384 of 2021, along with the
against the petitioner.
The Court clarified, however, that the order would not preclude continuation of proceedings against the remaining co-accused in accordance with law. No order was made as to costs.
The ruling reinforces a vital safeguard for corporate officers: where a statute predicates on a company's primary guilt, prosecutors cannot cherry-pick individual employees while leaving the corporate entity untouched — the foundation must be laid before the superstructure can rise.
