Specific allegations of consent, connivance, or neglect are necessary to hold a person liable under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, as per the provisions of section 47.

JUDGMENT :

1. Inherent powers of this court under section 482 of Cr.P.C . are invoked for quashment of criminal complaint alleging offences under sections 43, 44 and 49 of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution), Act, 1974 (for brevity the Act), cognizance of which has been taken by order dated 3-7-2015 (Annexure-P/2) passed in Cri. Case No. 434/15 by JMFC Gohad, district Bhind (M.P.) against the petitioner, who happens to be the Managing Director of the Cadbury India Ltd. (now known as Mondelez India Foods Private Limited), which is a company registered under the Companies Act having its headquarters at Mumbai and factory at Malanpur Industrial Area, district Bhind.

2. The respondents by the complaint in question alleged offences punishable under sections 43, 44 and 49 of the Act on the allegation of contravention of sections 24, 25 and 26 of the Act of exuding untreated industrial effluent. The court of competent criminal jurisdiction has taken cognizance by issuing summons against three persons including the petitioner herein, impleaded as accused of the said complaint.

2.1 Pertinently, other two accused impleaded in the complaint were Company itself and one Jai Kumar Nair, Vice President of the said company.

3. Shri Surendra Singh, learned Senior Advocate along with Shri Saurabh Agrawal, counsel for the petitioner has raised singular ground of challenge to the said complaint by contending that the petitioner being Managing Director of the said company was not the person in day-to-day control of the affairs of the factory of the company from where the industrial effluent is alleged to have been discharged. In continuation, it is alleged that when one of the accused namely Jai Kumar Nair, Vice President of the said company had been appointed as Factory Manager w.e.f. 1-4-2014 by resolution vide Annexure-P/7 of the Board of Directors of the said company dated 23-5-2014 then, there was neither any occasion nor any lawful authority with the respondents to implead the petitioner as an accused in the complaint. In support of his submission, learned counsel placed reliance on the decisions in the cases of Pepsico India Holdings (P) Ltd. vs. Food Inspector and another, (2011) 1 SCC 176 (para 50), Girdhari Lal Gupta vs. D.H. Mehta and another, AIR 1971 SC 2162 (para 6) and Puja Ravinder Devidasani vs. State of Maharashtra and another, AIR 2015 SC 675 (paras 18, 19 and 20).

3.1. Shri Harish Dixit, learned counsel for the respondent on the other hand contends that the petitioner being Managing Director of the company was very much in charge and responsible for day-to-day affairs of the company and its business and therefore he cannot wriggle out of the clutches of section 47 by shifting liability to any other person.

4. Learned counsel for the rival parties are head.

5. In the present case, the factual matrix discloses that the incident is said to have taken place on 14-8-2014. The impugned complaint, Annexure-P/1, filed by the respondent describes the said company in para 1 followed by para 2 containing the factum that the company was issued environmental clearance under sections 25 and 26 of the said Act vide letter dated 22-8-2013 subject to fulfilment of two conditions mentioned therein. Thereafter para 3 describes facts which gave rise to the cause of action to the effect that on 14-8-2014 the employees of Water Pollution Control Board on inspection found industrial untreated effluent flowing from the drains and also detected food oil and polluted water including chemicals in the tank, which impelled the inspecting team to take samples and send them to laboratory for examination. Paras 4 and 5 relate to chemical examination by the laboratory which found the effluents to be polluted. Finally, para 7 of the complaint alleges that in view of above cause of action, offence under sections 43, 44 and 49 of the Act has been committed by the accused-petitioner which is endorsed by the prayer to the JMFC to punish the accused.

5.1. Noticeably