IMPORTANT POINTS
(1) Quantum of punishment – There is no prohibition, for this Court to impose a lesser punishment which is now applicable for same crime.
(2) There is no provision for imprisonment – When an amendment is beneficial to accused it can be applied even to cases pending in Courts where such a provision did not exist at the time of commission of offence.

JUDGMENT :

Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.

Leave granted.

2. The present appeal arises out of a proceeding under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (for short ‘the Act’) where the present appellant no.1, its partners appellant no.2 and Amit Kumar Sarkar, were charged under Section 16(1)(a)(i) read with Section 7 of the Act and were convicted by the Trial court. Appellant no.2 and Amit Kumar Sarkar were sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of six months along with a fine of Rs.1,000/- each, whereas appellant no.1 was directed to pay a fine of Rs.2,000/-.

3. The appeal of the appellants against the order of conviction and sentence by the Trial Court was dismissed by the District and Sessions Judge but the conviction of Amit Kumar Sarkar, the third accused in the case, was set aside and he was acquitted. In Revision proceedings, the High Court of Calcutta though upheld the concurrent findings of conviction but reduced the sentence of appellant no.2 from 6 months to 3 months simple imprisonment.

4. Brief facts leading to this appeal are that on 06.12.2000, a food inspector while inspecting the shop/godown of the appellants at 71, Biplabi Rash Behari Basu Road, Calcutta took samples of some sugar boiled confectionaries, which were kept for sale and for human consumption. After payment, the food inspector purchased 1500 grams of sugar boiled confectionery contained in three packets of 500 grams each, and as per due process sent the samples for examination in a laboratory. The public analysis/Lab report shows that the food articles were not adulterated, but it said that the packets did not show the prescribed particulars such as complete address of the manufacturer and the date of manufacturing. Thus, there was violation of Rule 32(c) and (f) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955 (for short ‘Rules’). In view of these findings, the inspector filed a complaint before the Trial Court under Section 16(1)(a)(i) read with Section 7 of the Act.

5. The plea of the appellants before the Trial Court was that they had not manufactured the food articles, instead Bose Confectionary, Calcutta had manufactured these items. All the same, the appellants could not show any valid proof of their contention and thus, the Trial Court and the Appellate Court (as well as the Revisional Court) did not accept this contention raised by the appellants. The appellant stood convicted of the offence under Section 16(1)(a)(i) read with Section 7 of the Act and appellant no.2 was sentenced to undergo 3 months simple imprisonment along with fine. While appellant no.1 was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs.2,000/-.

6. Before this Court, learned Counsel for the appellants would argue that the entire case of the prosecution is liable to be dismissed for the simple reason that the appellants were charged under Rule 32 (c) and (f) of the Rules but these provisions were not related to misbranding and were regarding something else.

7. All the same, this contention is totally misconceived inasmuch on the date of occurrence i.e., 06.12.2000 when the samples were taken, the provisions which were applicable were Rule 32 (c) and (f) only (as the Rules had been amended vide G.S.R 422(E) dated 29.04.1987), and Rule 32 as per the Gazette Notification reads as under :-

“32. Package of food to carry a label: --

(a) …………

(b) …………

(c) The name and complete address of the manufacturer or importer or vendor or packer.

(d) ………..

(e) ………..

(f) The month and year in which the commodity is manufactured or prepacked.”

Therefore, this contention of the learned counsel for the appellant regarding non-applicability of the provision is not correct. There are concurrent findings of three Courts below and there is absolutely no question of us having any measure of doubt as to the findings, inasmuch as that the packets which were taken from shop/godown of the appellants were misbranded as defined under Section 2(ix)(k) of the Act, as they were not labelled in accordance with the requirement