Bhandari, J.—These three Rev. Applications have been referred by a Single Judge to a Division Bench. In all these cases common questions of law are involved. We shall first deal with Cr. Revision No. 3/1952 Ratanlal Vs. State. The Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Baran convicted Ratanlal accused under sec. 16(a) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 (Act No. 37 of 1954) [ hereinafter called the Act] for selling adulterated ghee in the town of Baran which has a Municipality. A complaint was filed against the accused after obtaining permission of the Vice-Chairman of the Municipality who was acting as Chairman in his absence. The accused admitted his guilt. The learned Sub-Divisional Magistrate sentenced the accused to three months rigorous imprisonment and payment of Rs. 500/- as fine. An appeal was filed by the accused in the court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Baran. The learned Judge of the lower appellate court maintained the sentence of imprisonment but reduced the fine from Rs. 500/- to Rs. 300/-. Thereupon the accused filed the present revision application which came up for hearing before Bhargava, J. who has referred it to a Division Bench as certain important questions of law are involved.

2. The following points were urged by the learned counsel for the petitioner in support of this revision application :—

(1) That the Baran Municipality was not declared a local area by the State Government and therefore, the Municipal Board, Baran could not be the local authority for giving a valid written consent for the prosecution of the petitioner ;

(2) That even if the Municipal Board, Baran is the local authority then the Vice Chairman of the said Municipal Board, though he may be discharging executive functions of the Board under sec. 67 (d) of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, could not give a valid consent as he was not authorised in this behalf by the said local authority as required by sec. 20 of the Act;

(3) That the provisions of sec. 67 (d) of the said Act are subject to the provisions of sec. 78, and under the latter section the said Board had not expressly delegated the power to grant consent to the Vice-Chairman and as such he could not give a valid written consent.

3. For the determination of some of the points, it is necessary to refer to sec. 2(vii) and 2(viii) of the Act which define local area and local authority respectively and also to the notification issued by the State Government declaring local area for the purposes of the Act. Sec. 2(vii) and (viii) run, as follows :

(vii) local area means an area, whether urban or rural, declared by the State Government by notification in the Official Gazette, to be a local area for the purpose of this Act:

(viii) local authority means in the case of—

(1) a local area which is —

(a) municipality, the municipal board or municipal corporation;

(b) a cantonment, the cantonment authority ;

(c) a notified area, the notified area committee;

(2) Any other local area, such authority as may be prescribed by the State, Government under this Act.

4. Notification No. F. 16-A(4) MI/53, dated 28.11.1956 published in the Rajasthan Rajpatra, Part IV(C) of the 20th of December, 1956 declared the territories of five administrative Divisions of Ajmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Udaipur and Kotah to be the five local areas. The contention on behalf of the petitioner is that the Baran Municipality was not declared to be a local area by the notification of the Government, as such Baran Municipal Board could not be deemed to be the local authority within see. 2(viii) of the Act. It is unfortunate that the notification issued by the State Government declared five administrative regions of the State as local areas. A number of Municipalities are included in these areas. The better course would have been to declare each Municipality in these areas a separate local area. This course, if adopted would not have created any confusion in the application of law and would have been in consonance with the scheme of t

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