The judgment emphasizes the importance of proving the authority to institute a prosecution under the relevant legal provisions and the requirement for sufficient evidence to establish guilt in criminal cases.

1. The prosecution in this case, for an offence under S.16 (1) (a) (i) read with S.7 (1) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954, (the Act for short) was instituted by a person who claimed that he was competent to do so under sub-section (1) of S.20 of the Act. That sub-section, so far as is material, runs thus:

"20. Cognizance and trial of offences.

(1) No prosecution for an offence under this Act shall be instituted except by, or with the written consent of the Central Government or the State Government or a local authority or a person authorised in this behalf, by general or special order, by the Central Government or the State Government or a local authority.

The complaint itself stated (and the complainant also gave evidence to the same effect as PW.1) that the State Government had, by a gazette notification dated the 4th May (sic. March) 1967 appointed the complainant as a Food Inspector under S.9 of the Act, and, by another notification of the same date under S.20 (1) authorised all Food Inspectors to institute prosecutions for offences under the Act. An issue of the official gazette - a gazette extraordinary of the 8th March, 1967- containing these notifications has been produced before us, and, under S.81 of the Evidence Act, we presume it to be genuine. There is there a notification dated the 4th March appointing PW.1, the complainant in this case, as a Food Inspector for the local area with which we are here concerned. And there is another notification of the same date which runs as follows:

'Under sub-section (1) of S.20 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (Central Act 37 of 1954), and in supersession of Notification No. 84493/D2/HLD, dated, 3rd .February, 1956, published in Part I of the Gazette dated 15th February 1966 the Government of Kerala hereby authorise the Food Inspectors appointed under the said Act to institute prosecutions for offences under the said Act."

2. The charge against the accused in this case was that he had "sold" gingelly oil which was adulterated to the complainant, PW.1. the learned magistrate who tried the case found that the accused had done so and was therefore guilty of the offence with which he was charged. But following the decision of a single judge of this Court in Criminal Appeal No. 63 of 1969, the magistrate held that the complainant's appointment as Food Inspector had not been properly proved and that therefore he was not satisfied that the complainant was a person duly authorised under S.20 of the Act to institute the prosecution. (He was apparently prepared to take judicial notice of the authorisation of all Food Inspectors to institute prosecutions for offences under; the Act whether under clause (1) of S.57 of the Evidence Act as a law in force, or, as was held in Abdulla Hajiv. Food Inspector, 1967 KLT. 577, as constituting a function of a Food Inspector and therefore falling within clause (7) of that section, a Food Inspector being undoubtedly a person filling a public office, we do not know. However, that is not a question that was raised either before him or before us, and we do not think it necessary to say anything more about that than that it seems to us that that was a matter of which the learned magistrate was entitled to take judicial notice.) In this view of the matter, aamely, that the complainant had not proved that he was a Food Inspector and therefore had not shown that he was covered by the notification authorising Food Inspectors to institute prosecutions, the learned magistrate acquitted the accused. Against that acquittal this appeal has been brought under sub-section (1) of S.417 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and, in the view that there are conflicting decisions of this Court regarding the question involved, the appeal has been referred by the single judge who first heard it to a division bench, and, in turn, by the division bench to a full bench.

3. We might at the outset observe that, although the learned magistrate calle