( 1. ) THE question for this Division Bench is-Whether a Food Inspector functioning as such under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act is a police officer or not within the meaning of the expression police officer appearing in Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act?

( 2. ) THE facts are shortly as follows. The two accused, Bashir Khan and Rashid Khan, are being tried on a complaint by the Food Inspector under Section 7 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. 1954 : read with Rule 44 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules 1955. They are charged with having sold an admixture of cows and buffalos milk, which is an offence under Section 16 of the Act. One piece of evidence against them was an alleged statement by one of the accused to the Food Inspector to the effect that the milk in question was neither pure Cows milk nor buffalos milk but was a mixture of both. On objection by the accused the learned trying Magistrate sustained their objection that the confessional statement was inadmissible under Section 25 of the Evidence Act on the hypothesis that the Food Inspector, who investigated into the offence, being invested under Section 10 (8) of the Act with the pow