The central legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of 'sale' under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and the distinction between persons selling such articles and private individuals.

1. The respondents in these two appeals have been acquitted by the District Magistrate of the offence under S.16(1)(a)(i) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. The charge against them was that they sold sugar adulterated with saccharin to the Food Inspector. The respondents were owners of tea shops; and they did not sell sugar as such in their shops. The District Magistrate has acquitted them on the ground that the sugar they sold to the Food Inspector was not meant to be sold, in other words, the respondents were not dealers in sugar.

2. Saccharin is not prohibited as an admixture in some articles of food. R.44 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules of 1955 prohibits the sale of certain mixtures. But, under clause (g) of the rule, any article of food, which contains any artificial sweetener except saccharin, alone is prohibited. R.47 prescribes that saccharin may be added to any food, if the container of such food is labelled with an adhesive declaratory label showing that it contains an admixture of saccharin.

3. Admittedly, what happened in these cases was that the Food Inspector went to the tea shops of the respondents and purchased samples of sugar from them, kept in bottles not labelled. It is also admitted that the respondents were not selling sugar as such, in other words, were not dealers in sugar. But, the argument of the counsel of the Food Inspector is that the sale of sugar to the Food Inspector is a sale as contemplated by the Act; and that if the article sold was an adulterated article of food, the vendor of such article committed an offence under the Act.

4. S.5 of the Act prohibits the import, inter alia, of adulterated food. S.7 prohibits the manufacture for sale, the storing, the selling or the distribution of, inter alia, any adulterated food. S.16 (1) (a) (i) provides penalties for importing adulterated food, manufacturing adulterated food for sale, storing adulterated food, selling adulterated food, or distributing adulterated food. From S.7 it is quite clear that the storing and the distribution mentioned therein must also be for sale of course, the manufacture should be for sale as indicated by the wording of the section itself: there cannot be any doubt regarding that.

5. There is no case that the respondents in these cases have committed the offence of manufacturing or of storing or of distributing: the charge levelled against them is that they sold adulterated food. The question then arises whether the sale of adulterated food to the Food Inspector is a sale under the Act. My learned brother, Raman Nayar J., has held in Food Inspector Calicut v. Parameswaran Chettiar (1961 K.L T. 308) that a sale to the Food Inspector is not a sale coming within the mischief of S.7 of the Act. But, the Supreme Court has held in Mangaldas Raghavji Ruparel v. State of Maharashtra (A. I. R.1966 S.C.128) that a sale to a Food Inspector is also a. sale coming within the section. Their Lordships have considered the decision of Raman Nayar J. and have observed that it is difficult to appreciate the reasoning of my learned brother. Basing on this decision of the Supreme Court, the counsel of the Food Inspector argues that, since admittedly the sugar contained saccharin and since the sugar was sold to the Food Inspector, the respondents have committed the offence under S.16 (1) (a) (i). The counsel has also drawn my attention to two decisions, one by the Gujarat High Court in The State of Gujarat v. Asandas Kimmatrai Kvalramanni (A.I.R.1964 Guj.191), and the other by the Allahabad High Court in Municipal Board, Faizabad v. Lal Chand Surajmal (A.I.R.1964 All. 199). V. B Raju J. of the Gujarat High Court has held in the former case that if the sample of adulterated food was sold to the Food Inspector, that would be an offence under S.7; and that it was not necessary to prove that the sample was taken out of a larger quantity which was also intended for sale. According to Raju J., even one act of sale or dist