Y.V.CHANDRACHUD, J.-

(1) THESE four appeals arise out of four prosecutions which were disposed of by a common judgment by the learned Presidency Magistrate, 25th court, Mazgaon, Bombay. The facts .leading to the prosecution are not in all respects identical in the four cases but it is obvious from the judgments under consideration that the cases were heard and disposed of on the basis that the variation in the facts would not make difference to the result. The four respondents in these appeals are shopkeepers in Bombay - some run grocery shops while some deal only in oils of different varieties. The charge against the respondents is that they failed to display prices of vanaspati which they were selling in their shops in tinned and loose form.

(2) S. 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, 10 of 1955, empowers the central government, by order, to provide for regulating or prohibiting the production, supply and distribution or trade and commerce in any essential commodity for the purposes mentioned in Ss. (1) thereof. Ss. (2) of S. 3 specifies various matters in regard to which the central government may pass orders contemplated by Ss. (1). The power conferred by S. 3 was delegated by the central government to the State governments in pursuance of the provision contained in S. 5. S. 7 provides for punishment for contravention of an order made under S. 3.

(3) IN exercise of the powers conferred by S. 3 read with S. 5 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 the government of Maharashtra issued the Maharashtra Scheduled Articles (Display and Marking of Prices) Order, 1966. Clause 3 (a) of that order provides that every dealer shall, in respect of the articles specified in Schedule 1, display a list of prices in the form prescribed in that schedule. We are concerned with items 15 and 16 of the Schedule which read : " 15. Vanaspati, Tinned" and "16. Vanaspati, Loose".

(4) STATED broadly, the defence of the respondents to the charge is that they were selling hydrogenated oils or vegetable ghee or vegetable oils and not vanaspati.

(5) THE learned Magistrate acquitted the respondents in all the four cases holding that even if the word vanaspati may have acquired a local meaning, it could not be said that the order used the word vanaspati to include hydrogenated oils. Since the respondents, according to the learned Magistrate, could not be expected to know that they were bound to disclose the prices of hydrogenated oils also and since hydrogenated oils were not included in Schedule 1, the charge was unsustainable.

(6) THE appeals filed by the State of Maharashtra against the orders of acquittal were heard and disposed of by a common judgment dated 3/03/1971 by a learned Single Judge of the High court. Observing that there was considerable force in the contention of the State Govern ment that vanaspati would include hydrogenated oils also, the learned Judge felt that it was unnecessary to go into that question since the prosecution was not maintainable for another reason. That reason, according to the learned Judge, was that legislative draftsmen always made a distinction between contravention of law and failure to comply or noncompliance with it. If the court is called upon to decide, says the learned Judge, whether a particular contravention is an offence, it was bound to enquire whether mere non-compliance was also intended to be punished. Guided by that principle, the learned Judge came to the conclusion that the duty to display prices was "a subsidiary matter to the prohibition which is contained in clause 4 which prohibits a dealer from selling an article at a price higher than the price displayed or from refusing to sell or from withholding from sale such articles at the price displayed or marked". The substance of the order was thus thought to be contained in clause 4 and .accordingly, the judgment proceeds: "Mere non-compliance of clause 3 cannot be an offence punishable as con