The responsibility for substandard fertilizer lies with the supplier if the product was received in its original form without tampering.

T.H.B.Chalapathi, J.

1. The appellants are partners of firm M/s Mangat Ram & Sons, Faridkot, On 27.6.1984 the Chief Agricultural Officer visited the shop of the appellants and found that they were in possession of 273 bags of NFL fertilizer. Then the Chief Agricultural Office took a sample of the fertilizer from a bag and divided the sample into four equal portions and sent one sample to the laboratory for analysis. The Analyst found that the sample was deficient in respect of Nitrogen and Amonical Nitrogen and therefore, a case was registered in FIR No. 135 dated 8.11.1984, Police Station, Kotwali Faridkot under Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act 1955 and a charge sheet was filed in the Court of Presiding Officer, Special Court, Faridkot against the accused. The learned Presiding Officer, Special Court took the case in file in Case No. 4 of 1985. In order to prove the guilt of the accused, the prosecution examined the witnesses and marked certain documents. After closure of the prosecution evidence, the accused was examined under Section 313 Cr. P.C, wherein they stated that they had purchased the fertilizer from National Fertilizer Ltd., Nangal Unit which is a Government undertaking and that the said unit itself is responsible for any manufacturing defect or its being substandard. In defence, the accused examined the Accounts Officer of the Nangal Fertilizer Ltd., Nangal as D.W.l. On a consideration of the material on record, the learned Presiding Officer of the Special Court convicted the accused for the offence under Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and to pay fine of Rs. 1,000/-. Aggrieved by the same, the appellants preferred the above appeal.

2. There is no dispute that the Chief Agricultural Officer who has been examined as PW.l visited the shop of the appellants on 27.6.1984 and took the sample of the fertilizer. The case of the prosecution is that the fertilizer is substandard and it does not contain the total Nitrogen and Amonical Nitrogen as prescribed standard. The report of the Analytical Chemist in the Fertilizer Control Laboratory in Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana was marked Ext. PC. According to PW. 6, the Analytical Chemist who examined the sample, the total Nitrogen was 24.5% against 25% and Amonical Nitrogen contents were 11.5% against 12.5%. Thus, there is a variation of 0.5% in total Nitrogen and 1% in Amonical Nitrogen. The said variation appears to be negligible. According to PW. 6 the tolerable variation is 0.3 unit whereas the variation was only 0.5 unit and PW.6 has not given the permissible limit of the variation in respect of Amonical Nitrogen. Thus the variation appears to be negligible. Apart from that, the fertilizer was purchased admittedly by the appellants from Nangal Fertilizer Ltd., Nangal. It is not disputed that to prove this fact DW. 1 has been examined, who was working as Accounts Officer at the relevant time with the National Fertilizers Ltd., Nangal. His evidence also shows that the fertilizer had been purchased by the appellants from National Fertilizers Ltd., Nangal. The evidence of DW. 1 also further shows that if there is any manufacturing defect, the responsibility lies on the National Fertilizers Ltd, Nangal as the bags are stitched with automatic machines. Farther, the evidence of PW. 2 who was the Enforcement Inspector, who was also present at the time of taking sample from the shop of the appellants, also deposed that the bags of fertilizers found in possession of the appellants, were machine stitched. Therefore, it is clear that the bags of fertilizer, found by the Chief Agricultural Officer and his party had been received by the appellants in their original form without any inter meddling or tampering. If this is the case, it cannot be said that the accused had any culpable mental state for committing any offence either under Section 7 of the Essential Commodities