Summary
Missing manufacturer-address and manufacture-date labels established misbranding under the rules applicable when the confectionery samples were taken in 2000, although the food was not adulterated. The conviction was upheld. Applying the benefit of the later, less severe misbranding provision and considering the long passage of time, the Court replaced the individual appellant’s three-month imprisonment and Rs.1,000 fine with a Rs.50,000 fine. The firm’s Rs.2,000 fine remained intact, with deposit directed within three weeks.
Issues
- Whether the cited labelling rules applied at the date of the offence.
- Whether a later law prescribing a less severe penalty could benefit the pending case.
- What sentence should be imposed on the individual and firm.
Provisions considered
- Sections 2(ix)(k), 7 and 16(1)(a)(i), Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954The unlabelled particulars amounted to misbranding notwithstanding the absence of adulteration. The conviction was maintained while punishment was modified. (¶¶ 2, 4, 5, 7, 10)
- Rule 32(c) and (f), as then applicable, Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955The contemporaneous amended rules required manufacturer or equivalent complete-address particulars and the month and year of manufacture or prepacking. The contention based on different rule numbering failed. (¶¶ 4, 6, 7)
- Section 52, Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006The later monetary-penalty provision for misbranding informed beneficial mitigation of the pending old-law sentence; the Court substituted a fine for the individual’s imprisonment. (¶¶ 9, 10)
- Article 20(1), Constitution of IndiaThe prohibition against retrospective criminalisation or harsher punishment does not bar an appropriate benefit from a subsequent law reducing punishment. (¶¶ 8, 9)
Held
- The tested confectionery was not adulterated, but its packaging lacked the prescribed address and manufacturing particulars. The relevant Rule 32(c) and (f) requirements were those in force in December 2000. The appellants’ attempt to invoke different numbering did not undermine the concurrent misbranding findings. (¶¶ 4, 5, 6, 7)
- Article 20(1) prohibits a later law from imposing a new offence or a greater penalty retrospectively. It does not prevent beneficial application of a subsequent, less severe punishment in a pending case. The Court followed that mitigation principle and the cited food-law sentencing decisions. (¶¶ 8, 9)
- The later Section 52 framework prescribed monetary penalty for misbranded food rather than imprisonment. Considering the offence’s nature, the individual appellant’s age and the approximately twenty-four-year passage of time, the Court upheld guilt but substituted Rs.50,000 fine for his three-month imprisonment and Rs.1,000 fine. (¶¶ 9, 10)
- The firm’s Rs.2,000 fine was upheld. The amounts were to be deposited before the concerned court within three weeks, and the appeal was partly allowed only as to the individual’s punishment. (¶ 10)
Result
Appeal partly allowed. Conviction upheld; individual appellant’s imprisonment and Rs.1,000 fine replaced by Rs.50,000 fine. Firm’s Rs.2,000 fine maintained; deposit directed within three weeks.