State of Haryana vs Suresh

Amar Dutt, J.

Through this revision petition, the petitioner State of Haryana seeks to challenge the order dated 30.1.1998 passed by Shri Gorakh Nath, Presiding Officer of the Special Court (constituted under the Essential Commodities Act) Sonepat whereby the accused have been discharged of an offence under Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act (for short the Act) with liberty to the police to file a separate challan against the Suresh accused under Sections 279 and 336 IPC.

The facts giving rise to the revision petition are that on 1.1.1998 on secret information Kewal Ram SI SHO Police Station Rai alongwith other police officials accompanying him had intercepted truck No. HYC 6334 when it was coming from the side of Manauli because it was being driven in a rash and negligent manner. The Driver, Suresh Kumar, had stopped the truck at the naka set up by the police. Two other persons Balbir Singh and Jai Chand, accused were sitting in the truck. Jai Chand had managed to run away. At the time it was stopped the truck was carrying 125 bags of rice. As the respondents could not produce any movement order or document authorising the movement of the rice, the same was taken into possession as according to the investigating agency the rice was being taken to Delhi. On the basis of Ruqa sent to Police Station, a case under Section 7 of the Act and Sections 279 and 336 IPC was registered. After completion of the investigation, the challan was put up and when the same came up for hearing before the Special Court, the Presiding Officer was of the view that as admittedly there was no ban on the export of rice from Haryana to Delhi and the evidence collected did not show that rice had been moved out of the mill/godown of a licenced dealer or a licensed miller, the three accused could not be said to have contravened the provisions of Clause 8(i) and 8(ii) of the Haryana Rice Procurement Levy JUDGMENT 1985 (for short the Levy JUDGMENT). He also came to the conclusion that in the absence of any evidence to show that the accused was engaged in the business of purchase, sale or storage of rice, it could not be said that they had contravened the provisions of clause 3(i) of the Haryana Food Articles Licensing Price Control JUDGMENT 1985 (for short the Control JUDGMENT). The trial Court concluded that they were merely crew of the truck which had been intercepted in the gasp of movement of the rice and therefore had not committed any offence under Section 7 of the Act.

Aggrieved by the aforesaid order, the State of Haryana has come up in revision.

I have heard Shri Ashish Sanghi, Advocate for the State and with his help have perused the record.

On behalf of the revision petitioners, it has been urged that since the quantity of rice recovered from the intercepted truck was more than 4 quintals, the trial court ought to have held that accused was either miller or a dealer as defined in clause 2(g) and 2(f) of the Levy JUDGMENT after relying on the presumption which was incorporated in clause 8(3) of the said order.

It was also urged that in any case possession of more than 4 quintals of rice contravened and the provisions of Clause 3(i) of the Control order had been violated and on that count too the respondents had rendered themselves liable to be tried under Section 7 of the Act and therefore, the Court below had erred in discharging the accused.

Having given my careful consideration to the arguments advanced by the learned counsel, I find myself unable to accept either of the two submissions.

Section 8 of the Levy JUDGMENT reads as under :

"8. Restriction on sale and movement of rice (1) No licensed miller or the licensed dealer shall sell or agree to sell or otherwise dispose of the rice recovered by milling or otherwise acquired by him (even other than the levy rice specified in clause 3 or clause 4) as the case may be, except in accordance with a Release certificate to be issued by the District Food and Supplies Controller.

(2) No licensed miller or licensed dealer shall transport rice from the premises of the rice mill or the godown declared in license except after obtaining and in accordance with the movement chit set out in Schedule VII to be issued by the District Food and Supplies Controller.

(3) The onus of proof to show that the rice is levy free shall rest upon the person who either owns, possesses or moves through any mode of conveyance, rice in excess of the permissible quantity of less than four quintals."

A perusal of subsections (1) and (2) of this Section indicates that for bringing home charge for contravening the said provision, the prosecution had to show that respondents were licensed miller or licensed dealers as defined in clause 2(g) and 2(f) of the Levy order which reads as under :

"2(g) "licensed miller" means the owner or other person incharge of rice mill holding a valid licence under the Rice Milling Industry (Regulation) Act, 1958 (Central Act 21 of 1958) and includes a person or authority which has the ultimate control over the affairs of such mill and when the said affairs are entrusted to a Manager, Managing Director or Managing Agency, such Manager, Managing Director or Managing Agent".

2(f) "licensed dealer" means a person holding a valid licence under the Haryana Food Grains Dealers Licensing and Price Control JUDGMENT 1978".

There was apparently no evidence collected by the investigating agency in relation to this aspect of the case and therefore, the trial Court was right when it came to the conclusion that in the absence of any such evidence, the provisions of clause 8(1) and (2) could not be said to have been violated by the respondents.

Reliance has also been placed on clause 3 for impelling me to draw an inference that mere possession of rice in excess of permissible quantity of four quintals would per se warrant inference that the respondents were licensed miller or licensed dealer and this argument too has to be rejected. A reading of subsection 3 of this Section indicates that said clause only changes the onus of proof regarding rice is levy free. It cannot by any stretch of imagination be said to warrant an inference that the person found in possession of rice was a licensed miller or a licensed dealer.

The second argument regarding contravention of clause 3(i) of the Control JUDGMENT is also to be rejected. Clause 3(i) reads as under :

"3(1) No person shall carry on business as a dealer except under and in accordance with the terms and conditions of a licence granted under this order by the licensing authority :

Provided that a dealer holding a valid licence of food articles under the various licensing orders mentioned in Schedule II shall obtain a licence under this order within ninety days of commencement of this order :

Provided further that a licence granted under the control orders mentioned in schedule II shall be valid and continue in force for the unexpired portion of the period of the licence without payment of additional fee :

Provided further that educational institutions maintaining hostels for students, charitable institutions, hospitals and religious institutions shall be exempted from the operation of this clause, subject to the condition that they store food articles for consumption by their inmates only and not for sale."

This clause incorporates a provision to any person carrying on business as a dealer except in terms and conditions of the licence granted to him under the order by the licensing authority.

Section 2(f) of the order defines ''dealer'' as under :

2(f) "licensed dealer" means a person holding a valid licence under the Haryana Food Grains Dealers Licensing and Price Control JUDGMENT 1978."

Although subclause 2(i) brings within the definition a representative or agent of the dealer but there is nothing on record to show that respondents were acting as representatives or agents of any person who was engaged in the business of purchase, sale, storage for sale of any food articles in excess of quantity as mentioned in schedule 1.

The trial Court had therefore rightly come to the conclusion that none of the respondents who were the truck driver and the persons travelling thereon at the time when the truck was stopped could in any manner be said to have contravened the provisions of Section 7 of the Act so as to warrant a framing of charge against them.

In view of the above discussion, the revision is devoid of any merit and is consequently dismissed.

Revision dismissed.