Messrs Garg Masala Company, Samana vs State of Punjab

S.S. Dewan, J.—The present petition has been filed u/s 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure with a prayer for quashing of the complaint, the summoning order and the proceedings pending against the Petitioner in the Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Samrala, under the Prevention of Food Adultration Act. A copy of the complaint has been annexed with the petition as Annexure P. 1, a copy of the report of the Public Analyst as Annexure P. 2 and a copy of the summoning order as Annexure P-4.

It is unnecessary to recount the facts because it is a common ground between the parties that the Food Inspector visited the shop of Kudrat Singh and purchased six packets of Mirchi powder each weighing 100 grams as sample for analysis and out of them two packets of Mirchi were sent to the Public Analyst for analysis and that on receipt of the report of the Public Analyst, the Food Inspector filed a complaint against Kudrat Singh and proprietor of M/s Garg Masala Company. The sample was admittedly wrapped in a strong thick paper and not in sealed container as required under the rules. The question of legality of the method of sending the sample in a packet instead of sending it is in a sealed container has been considered by a Division Beach of this Court in Criminal Appeal No. 1053 of 1975 (State of Haryana v. Gordhan Daas Cri. Appeal No. 1053 of 1975) and it was held that in view of the fact that the relevant rule lays down that the sample should be sent to the Public Analyst in a dry and clean container, it is not open to the Food Inspector to send the sample in the form of a packet, which is likely to be tampered with. The present case is fully covered by the dictum as laid down in Gordhan Dass''s case (supra). Accordingly, the complaint in the present case, copy Annexure P. 1, the order summoning the Petitioner, copy Annexure P. 4 and all proceedings now pending against the Petitioner in the Court of the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Khanna, are consequently qushed so far as the Petitioner is concerned.