Summary
A milk vendor challenged his food-adulteration conviction, relying on a marginal shortfall in prescribed solids, delay in testing and a request to reduce or commute imprisonment. The Court rejected those grounds, held that marginal deficiency did not excuse failure to meet the statutory standard, and declined to replace the Government’s commutation power or impose less than the minimum sentence.
Issues
- Whether marginal departure from prescribed food standards justified acquittal.
- Whether the Court could commute or reduce the statutory minimum sentence on the asserted grounds.
Provisions considered
- Section 13(2), Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954The accused received the option to seek Central Food Laboratory analysis but did not exercise it; the asserted deprivation of that right was rejected. (¶ 4)
- Section 433, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973Commutation belongs to the appropriate Government; the Court could recommend consideration but could not exercise that power or direct a merely formal compliance order. (¶¶ 12, 13)
Held
- The alleged effect of testing delay lacked evidentiary support. The accused did not summon the analyst and had not exercised his notified right to a second analysis; the missing witness list in the initial complaint did not affect that right. (¶¶ 3, 4)
- Nonconformity with the prescribed milk standard constituted adulteration without separate proof of injury to health. Marginal or borderline deficiency was not an exemption, and acquittal could not rest on that ground alone. (¶¶ 8, 9, 10, 11)
- Santosh Kumar and N. Sukumaran Nair were treated as per incuriam insofar as relied upon to justify judicial commutation without examining Section 433. The statutory power is the Government’s, not the Court’s. (¶¶ 12, 13)
- On the request made here, passage of over twenty years did not justify using Article 142 contrary to the prescribed minimum six-month sentence. (¶¶ 14, 15)
Result
The appeal and pending applications were dismissed. Bail bonds were cancelled, and the appellant was directed to surrender within four weeks to serve the remaining sentence; the trial court was to act if he failed to surrender.