A Court is expected to know, whether the parties to proceeding before it assist it or not, what the law is on a particular subject and to apply it correctly.

G.N.Prasad, J.

1. This is an appeal by the State Government against the acquittal of the two respondents after trial on charges under Clauses (a) and (b) of Sec.27 of the Drugs Act (23 of 1940) for stocking and exhibiting for sale certain misbranded drugs in contravention of Sec.18 (a) (ii) of the Act and for doing so without license in contravention of Sec.18 (c) of the Act read with Rules 59 (2) and 61 (i) of the Drugs Rules. The offences are said to have been committed on the 27th October 1961 at a Kirana shop of the respondents situated in mahalla Baribazar of Hazaribagh town.

2. The prosecution case is that on the aforesaid date Shyam Sunder Prasad (P. W. 3), the Inspector of Drugs, visited the shop of the respondents and found Anocin, Anacin, Bedna Santi Ras and Raj Bedna Santi Ras being exhibited there for sale. He also found a photograph of Ram and Sita with the cartoon of Amogin exhibited in the shop. He seized the aforesaid articles along with a cash memo of a firm known as Jai Janta and Company with head office at Patna. The seizure was made in the presence of some witnesses, one of whom was Ajit Kumar Sarkar (P.W. 1) and the seizure list (Ext. 3) was prepared in form No. 16 prescribed by Rule 55 of the Drugs Rules, A copy of the seizure list was also handed over to the respondents and one of them Mahabir Sahu endorsed his signature on the seizure list (Ext. 3). Thereafter on enquiry from the Director of Health Services, who is the Chief licensing officer for the purposes of the Drugs Act, it transpired that Jai Janta and Company of Patna was not a licensed manufacturer of drugs in the State of Bihar. From the Civil Surgeon of Hazaribagh, who is the licensing the respondents held no license for selling drugs, authority of his district, it was ascertained that The Drugs Inspector thereupon submitted a prosecution report and the present prosecution was started.

3. The respondents denied that any drug had been seized from their shop or that they had stocked or exhibited for sale any drug in contravention of the law.

4. Before the learned trying Magistrate the prosecution relied upon the evidence of the Drugs Inspector (P. W. 3) supported by that of Sarkar (P. W. 1), one of the search witnesses, and an assistant of the Civil Surgeons office Lalit Kishore Prasad (P. W. 4). Upon a consideration of their evidence the learned Magistrate came to the conclusion that Anocin, Anacin, Bedna Santi Ras and Raj Bedna Santi Ras were rnisbranded drugs which had been seized by the Inspector (P. W. 3) from the Kirana shop of the respondents where they had been stocked and exhibited for sale. The learned Magistrate also found that the respondents were not in possession of any license for sale of drugs. The learned Magistrate, however, acquitted the accused persons only on the ground that the prosecution had not brought on the record or filed in Court a copy of the notification contemplated by Sub-section (3) of Sec.1 of the Drugs Act appointing the date when Chapter IV of the Act would take effect in a particular State. The learned Magistrate pointed out that several opportunities had been given to the prosecution for filing the notification in question; but in spite of it the prosecution did not produce any such notification and thereby left behind a great lacuna in the evidence for the prosecution. Holding that it had not been proved that Sec.18 of the Act which is to be found in Chapter IV of the Act was in effect in this State, the learned Magistrate acquitted the respondents.

5. So far as the findings of fact reached by the learned Magistrate are concerned, I find that they are amply supported by the materials on the record. It has been proved that the respondents had stocked and exhibited for sale articles described as Anocin, Anacin, Bedna Santi Ras and Raj Bedna Santi Ras in their Kirana shop. But I am not satised that Bedna Santi Ras and Raj Bedna Satni Ras were drugs within the meaning of Sec.3(b) of the Act. The defin