The appellate court upheld the trial court's acquittal, emphasizing that an acquittal should not be overturned unless there is evident illegality or insufficient evidence contrary to natural justice principles.

JUDGMENT :

S.V. PINTO, J.

1. This appeal has been filed by the appellant – State under Section 378(1)(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Code’) against the judgment and the order dated 07.04.2011 in Criminal Case No.13 of 1995 passed by the learned Metropolitan Magistrate, Court No.8, Ahmedabad (hereinafter referred to as ‘the learned Trial Court’), whereby, the learned Trial Court has acquitted the respondent – accused from the offences punishable under Sections 2 (1-a)(a) and (m), 7(1) and 16(1)(a) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’).

1.1. The respondent is hereinafter referred to as ‘the accused’ as he stood in the rank and file in the original case, for the sake of convenience, clarity and brevity.

2. The relevant facts leading to filing of the present appeal are as under:

2.1. The complainant was serving as a Food Inspector and on 07.09.1994 at about 10:00am, he along with J.N.Soni, Food Inspector and T.V.Makwana, Helper, visited the shop of the accused running in the name and style of “Zalak Enterprise” and had purchased 450gram of Deepak Brand Filtered Groundnut Oil and paid an amount of Rs.19.80 for the oil and got the receipt for the same from the accused. The sample of groundnut oil was kept in three glass bottles and the bottles were sealed. The Food Inspector put his signature as well as signatures of the panchas and the seals and after following the prescribed procedure, the one sample oil bottle was sent for analysis to the Public Analyst. On the sample being found adulterated, after obtaining the necessary sanction the complaint was filed before the Court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Ahmedabad, which was registered as Criminal Case No. 13 of 1995 for the offence punishable under Section 2 (1-a)(a) and (M) and 16(a)(a) of the Act.

2.2. The accused was duly served with the summons and the accused appeared before the learned Trial Court and it was verified whether the copies of all the papers were provided to the accused as per the provisions of Section 2 07 of the Code. As the case was a private warrant triable case, the evidence of the complainant on oath was recorded at Exh.8 and the complainant produced documentary evidence at Exh.9 to Exh.32. Considering the evidence on record as a prima-facie are was made out, a charge was framed by the learned Trial Court at Exh.34 and the statement of the accused was recorded at Exh.3, wherein, the accused denied all the contents of the charge and the further evidence of the prosecution was taken on record. The prosecution examined 2 witnesses i.e. the complainant - Shailesh Somabhai Patel, Food Inspector at Exh.8 and PW-2 Maheshbhai Prabhudas at Exh.43 and has produced documentary evidences from Exh.9 to Exh. 32 in support of the case.

2.3 After the evidence of the complainant was closed by an order dated 31.03.2003 passed below Exh.46, the further statement of the accused under Section 313 of the Code were recorded wherein in the accused denied the evidence on record. After hearing the arguments of the learned APP and learned advocate for the accused and after perusing the documents on record, the learned Trial Court, by the impugned judgment and order, was pleased to acquit the accused for the offences punishable under Sections 2 (1-a)(a) and (m), 7(1) and 16(1)(a) of the Act.

3. Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned judgment and order passed by the learned Trial Court, the appellant – State has filed the present appeal mainly stating that the impugned judgment and order of acquittal passed by the learned Trial Court is contrary to law, evidence on record and principles of natural justice. The learned Trial Court has erred in eva