Summary
The Supreme Court quashed the search of ITC's warehouse and seizure of 7,600 cartons of exercise books under Section 15 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, holding that Section 15 requires recorded reasons to believe and, through Section 15(4), compliance with the Cr.P.C. search provisions including a warrant or Section 165 reasons and two independent witnesses under Section 100(4), irrespective of whether the business premises were open or closed. The Single Judge's order quashing the seizure and compounding notices was restored.
Issues
- Whether a search, inspection and seizure under Section 15 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 can be made without a warrant or recorded reasons to believe.
- Whether Section 100 Cr.P.C. applies only to closed premises, so that an open commercial warehouse could be searched without its safeguards.
- Whether the presence of the inspecting officer's driver as the sole witness satisfied Section 100(4) Cr.P.C.
- Whether the seizure and the simultaneous compounding notice were sustainable and the writ petition under Article 226 maintainable.
Provisions considered
- Section 15, Legal Metrology Act, 2009Read as requiring reasons to believe both for entering to search or inspect and for seizing goods, and, by sub-section (4), compliance with the Cr.P.C. provisions on search and seizure; the search here was made without a warrant and without any recorded reasons and was held vitiated. (¶¶ 11, 11.1, 14, 20, 23)
- Section 2(n), Legal Metrology Act, 2009The definition of premises expressly includes warehouses and godowns where goods are stored, drawing no distinction between open and closed premises, so Cr.P.C. safeguards apply to such places. (¶¶ 13, 13.1, 14)
- Sections 93 and 100(4)-(5), Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973A warrant is ordinarily required for both search and inspection, and the search must be witnessed by two or more independent and respectable inhabitants who sign the list of things seized; the officer's own driver was not an independent witness and no attempt to secure local witnesses was recorded. (¶¶ 15, 15.1, 21)
- Section 165, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973A warrantless search is permissible only where urgency prevents obtaining a warrant and the officer records the grounds of his belief; Section 100 applies to such searches, and nothing showed urgency or recorded grounds here. (¶¶ 17, 18, 23)
- Section 102, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973Held to cover seizure of suspected goods found during a general or chance search, not seizure following a search or inspection under Section 15 of the 2009 Act, so the respondents could not rely on it to dispense with a warrant. (¶ 15.2)
- Rule 24(a), Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011The only alleged defect was that the required declarations on the cartons were affixed by label instead of printed; there was no claim that contents differed from the label, so the violation was at best technical, particularly as cartons used only for transport were not wholesale packages per Raj Marketing and the official clarifications. (¶¶ 20, 22)
- Section 48, Legal Metrology Act, 2009The compounding notice issued the same day as the seizure fell with the illegal search and seizure and was quashed. (¶ 23)
Held
- Section 15 of the Legal Metrology Act requires the officer to have reasons to believe, both before searching or inspecting premises and before seizing goods, and Section 15(4) obliges every search or seizure under it to comply with the Cr.P.C.; the Cr.P.C. applies to special enactments unless expressly excluded. (¶¶ 11.1, 14, 19.5)
- Search and inspection are distinct, but both ordinarily need a warrant and reasons to believe; in any warrantless search under a special enactment the reasons must be recorded, must rest on information or knowledge rather than suspicion, and there must be a rational nexus between the articles seized and the suspected violation. (¶¶ 15, 19, 19.2, 19.3)
- The Division Bench erred in holding that Section 100 Cr.P.C. applies only to closed premises. A warehouse or godown, to which access is restricted to those with business connections, is not public merely because it is open at the time of the visit; the statutory safeguards cannot be bypassed on that ground. (¶¶ 12, 14, 16)
- The respondents, having pleaded throughout that they searched and seized under Section 15, could not recast the action as a mere inspection, since the same prerequisites apply in either case. (¶ 16)
- Section 100(4) and (5) Cr.P.C. required two independent and respectable witnesses; using the officer's own driver violated the law, and the bare claim that no local witness was available was unsupported by the record or the mahazar. Where initial proceedings are vitiated, subsequent ones fall, and every violation of law is deemed to cause prejudice. (¶ 21)
- As no warrant was obtained, no reasons were recorded for search, inspection or seizure, no urgency was shown, and Sections 15 of the 2009 Act and 100(4) and 165 Cr.P.C. were disregarded, the entire proceedings from search to seizure and the compounding notice were illegal, and the Single Judge rightly quashed them. (¶¶ 20, 23)
Result
Appeal against the writ appeal judgment allowed; the Division Bench judgment and the seizure and compounding notices quashed and the Single Judge's order restored; the appeal against dismissal of the review petition disposed of as needing no further orders; no order as to costs.