Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.:- Every legislation is a social document and judicial construction seeks to decipher the statutory mission, *(1) language permitting taking the cue from the rule in Heydon s case of suppressing the evil and advancing the remedy. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 (the Act, for short) is a life-saving statute one of the provisions of which, together with a bunch of rules and forms, falls for interpretation and application to the substantially admitted facts set out concisely in the order granting certificate of fitness to appeal. The Bench projected the factual-legal issue in these words:-

* (1) 3 Co. Ref.7a -Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes12th Edn. , p.40

"It is not in dispute that the petitioners have a wholesale dealers licence to stock drugs at Bombay and have a further licence to distribute the drugs through the motor van throughout the territory of the State of Maharashtra. Accordingly, their motor van started filled with drugs and reached the Vidarbha area. The petitioners booked certain drugs for which they have already a licence to distribute, by lorry to Yeotmal. The idea was that the motor van, which was touring the Vidarbha area, should r