State of Maharashtra v. Hans Raj Depar Etc.

CHANDRACHUD, J.-These four appeals arise out of four prose- H cutions which were disposed of by a common judgment by the learned Presidence Magistrate, 25th Court, Mazgaon, B?mha.v. !he facts leading to the prosecution are not in all respect's 1dent1cal m the four so SUPREME COURT REPORTS U 977] 3 S·C.R. cases but it is obvious from the judgments under consideration that the cases were heard and disposed of on the basis that the variation in the facts would not make difference to the result. The four respondents in these appeals are shopkeepers in Bombay-some run grocery shops while some deal only in oils of different varieties. The charge against the respondents is that they failed to display prices of 'vanaspati' which they were selling in their shops in tinned and loose form. Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, 10 of 1955, em­ powers the Central Government, by order, to provide for regulating or prohibiting the production, supply and distribution or trade and commerce in any essential commodity for the purposes m~mtioned in sub-s. (1) thereof. Sub-section (2) of s.3 specifies various matters iu regard to which the Central Government may pass orders contem­ plated by sub-'s. (1). The power conferred by s. 3 was delegated by the Central Government to the State Governments in pursua nee of the provision contained in s. 5. Section 7 provides for punish­ ment for contravention of an ordt;r made under s. 3. In exercise of the powers conferred by s. 3 read with s. 5 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 the Government of Maharashtra issued the Maharashtra Scheduled Article's (Display and Marking of Prices) Order, 1966". Clause 3(a) of that order provides that every dealer shall, in respect of the articles specified in Schedule L display a list of prices in the form prescribed in that schedule. We are concerned with items 15 and 16 of the Schedule which read: "15. Vanaspati, Tinned" and "16. Vanaspati, Loose." • Stated broadly, the defence of the respondents to the charge is that they were selling hydrogenated oils or vegetable ghee or vege­ table oils and not 'vanaspati'. The. learned Magistrate acquitted the respondents in all the four cases holding that even if the \Vord 'vanaspati' may have acquired a Inca! meaning, it could net be said that the order used the word 'vanaspati' to include hydrogenated oils. Since the respondents, ac­ cording to the learned Magistrate, could not be expected to know that they were bound to disclose the price's of hydrogen~ted oils also and since hydrogenated oils were not included in Schedule I. the charge was unsustainable. The appeals filed by the State of Maharashtra against the orders of acquittal were heard and disposed of by a common judgment dated March 3, 1971 by a learned Single Judge of the High Court. Observ­ ing that there was considerable force .in the contention of the State Government that 'vanaspati' would include hydrogenated oils also, the learned Judge fel• that it was unnecessary to go into that question s;nce the prosecution was not maintainable for another reason. That reason, according to the learned Judge, was that legislative draftsmen always made a distinction between 'contravention' of law and 'failure to comply or non-compliance' witb it. If the Court is called upon to decide, says the learned Judge, whether a particular contravenfiim is -' MAHARASHTRA v. HANS RAJ DEPAR (Chandrachud, J.) 81 an offence, it was bound to enquire whether mere no~-c?mpliance A was also intended to be punished. Guided by that pnnc1ple, . the learned Judge came to the conclusion that the duty to display_ pnc~s was "a subsidiary matter to the prohibition which is. contained. m clause 4 which prohibits a dealer from selling an arttcle at a p:1cc higher than the price displayed or from refusing to sell or from with: holding from sale such articles at the price displayed or marked.'· The sustance of the order was thus thought to be contained in clause B 4 and accordingly, the judgment proceeds; "Mere non-compliance of clanse 3 cannot be an offence punishable as contravention unle~s there is a contravention of clause 4." Since the intention was said to be to punish contravention of clause 4 and not of clause 3 ~imp_li­ citer, the learned Judge held that the prosecution was not mamtam- able and the accused were entitled to an acquittal. These appeals by special leave are directed against the correctness of the High Court's C judgment. It is necessary in the larger public interest to dispel the misunder­ standing regarding the true meaning and intendment of clauses 3 and 4 of the 1966 Order. We will therefore deal first with the reasoning of the High Court that a mere contravention of clause 3 without the D contravention of clause 4 is not contravention within the meaning of s. 7 of the Essential Commodities Act 1955 and cannot therefore be punished. As stated earlier, clause 3(a) of the Order of 1966 im­ poses an obligation on every· dealer to display a list of prices of the article 'specified in Schedule I. Clause 4 of the Order provides that no dealer shall (a) sell or agree or offer for sale any article at a price higher than the price displayed or (b) refuse to sell or withhold from E sale such article§ _to any person at the price displayed or marked. We find ourselves totally unable to appreciate that there can he no con­ travention of clause 3(a) unless there is a contravention of clause 4 also. The two clau·ses deal with different matters because whereas clause 3. imposes an obligation on a dealer to display the prices of articles specified in Schedule I, clause 4 prohibits h;m from selling an article at a price higher than the one displaved or from refusing to F sell it at the price displayed. A contravention of clause 3(a) is.full and complete by mere reason of the fact that the dealer has failed to display the prices of articles specified in Schedule I. That contra­ vention does not depend on the consideration whether he has charged a higher price than the· price marked or whether he has refused to sell an article at the price displayed. In other words, the first step which a dealer has to take is to display the prices of articles specified in G Schedule I; if he fails to do that, he is >!Ui!ty uf contravention of clause 3 (a) which is punishable under s. 7 (I) of the Essential Com­ modities Act, 1955. The additional obligation which the dealer has to discharge is to be ready and willing to sell the articles at the prices displaved; failure to do so is a different and distinct contraven- tion which also attracts the application of s. 7(1). We find it impos- sible to subscribe to the view that clau·ses · 3 and 4 of the Order· of H 1966 are so interlinked that the legislature did not intend to punish the contravention of the former unless such contravention was accom­ panied by a contravention of the latter provision. The wedding of the two clauses in this fashion is entirely unwarranted. The ground on which the High Court has acquitted the respondents is therefore untenable and we reject the reasoning in that behalf as unsustain~ble. Were we satisfied that the respondents were selling 'vanaspati', tinned or loose, we would have had no hesitation in setting aside the order of acquittal and in convicting the respondents, ·since the non-display of prices is admitted. That raises the question whether there . is evidence to hold that the respondents were dealing in 'vanaspati'. The evidence on this question is woefully inadequate and we regret to notice !_hat no serious attempt was made by the prosecution to establi'sh the charge. The articles of which the prices were not displayed were not properly in­ ventoried, which makes it difficult to predicate that the articles bore any particular description. Panchanamas were made of the articles but except in one case, where the panchanama was exhibited by con­ sent, the panchas were not examined with the result that the pancha­ nama:s remained unproved and therefore unexhibited. In none of the cases was even a sample taken of the articles displayed for sale. If that were done, the nature, quality and components of the goods could easily .have been proved by analysing the sample chemically. One could then have said with easy facility that what was being sold was 'vanaspati'. Instead of doing what was easy and necessary to do, the prosecution offered, 11s a substitute for its plain duty, the vague recollections of a Rationing Inspector and a Sub Inspector of Police as to what was being sold by the respondents in their shops. For illustrating how cavalierly the prosecution approached its task, we will take the facts of appeal No. 156 of 1973 in which the respondent is one Hansraj Depar. The charge framed by the learn­ ed Magistrate affeges that the respondent had faiied to display the price list of 'vanaspati ghee'. The charge should have' been not in respect of any type of ghee but in respect of 'vanaspati' which is the item mentioned in Schedule I. The Rationing Impector, K. N. Joshi (P.W. 1), "stated in his evidence that the respondent had not exhibit­ ed the price of 'vanaspati ghee' which again is beside the point. Noth­ ing at all, not even a sample of the articles alleged as vanaspati, was taken charge of from the shop and the witness admitted that he did not remember what variety of articles were sold in the shop and as to how many tins of what is said to be va naspati ghee were found therein. The other witne·ss, Sub Inspector Kurdur (P.W. 2) does say that the respondent was selling vanaspati as also oil and that there were in .his shop "3 K. O. tins of Ravi Vanaspati, 2 K. 0. t.:ns of prabhat Vanaspati and one loose tin of Malali Vanaspati". In view of the challenge that what was being sold was not •;anaspati and that the tin's did not contain vanaspati within the meaning of items l 5 and 16 of Schedule I, the prosecution should have led evidence to show that the tins in fact contained vanaspati in the sense in which that expression is used in the Scheduled. The fpse dixit of the Sub Inspector who had. merely assisted the Rationing Inspector in effecting the raid cannot establish the charge which involves a punishment ot as long > l r MAHARASHTRA v. HANS RAJ DEPAR (Chandrachud, !.) 83 a term as seven years and normally of not less than three months, as A provided in s. 7(1) (a) (ii) of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. The prosecution did n_ot make any attempt to establish as to what is the true meaning and connotation of the expression 'vanas­ pati' and what kind of articles or goods are comprehended within the scope of that expression. The witnesses did not even say in their evidence, perfu_nctory as it is, that the word had acquired a popular meaning and was understood locally in a certain sense. Neither the Act of 1955 nor the Order of 1966 defines the expression 'vanaspati' and it was beside the point to say that 'vanaspati' is defined in the Bombay Sales Tax Act and the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1965 to include hydrogenated oil. The purpose of the Sales Tax Act is to bring within the tax not as large a number of articles as possible, that of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and the Rules thereunder is to ensure that the health of the community is not endangered by adulterated or spurious articles of food while that of the Essential Commodities Act with which we are concerned in the instant case is to ensure the availability of essential goods to the community at a proper price. This last Act was passed in order "to provide, in the interests of the general public, for the control of the production, supply and distribution of, and trade and commerce in, certain commodities". Sub Inspector Kurdur is no expert for the purposes ·of this Act and we cannot, without more, accept the dogma­ tic assertion made by him in one of these cases that vanaspati and ,l1ydrogenated oil "mean the same thing." Hydrogenation is a speci­ alised process and is described in Encyclopaedia Britannica (1951 ed., Vol 11, p. 978) as "the treatment of a substance with hydrogen so that this combines directly with the substance treated. The term has, however,. developed a more technical and restricted sense. It is now generally used to mean the treatmen~ of an "unsaturated" organic compound with hydrogen, so as to convert it by direct addition to a "saturated" compound." The· witness, excusably, seem·s unaware of this scientific sidelight and greater the ignorance, greater the dogma. If the witness were right, it is diflicult to understand why 'groundnut oil, Safflower oil, Sesamen oil and Mustard seed oil" and "coconut oil" find a separate and distinct place in Schedule I at items 5 and 6.1, Perhaps what thel witness guessed, science may sl1ow to be true but that has to be shown, not guessed. In State of Bihar v. Bhagirath Sharma(') a question arose whether motor car tyres were included within the meaning of the expression 'component parts and accessories of automobiles' used in a 'similar order issued in 1967 by the Bihar Government under the Essential Commodities Act. It was held by this Court that it was not enough that fro':'1 a broad point of view the tyre~ and tubes of motor cars may be considered to be covered by the partlcular expres'sion. After con­ sidering and comparing the various items in the particular schedule it was held by this Court that motor car tyres were not comprehend­ ed within the expression. It is apposite for our purpose to call at- (1) [19731 3 S.C.R. 937. tention to what the Court said in that case, namely, that according to the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence which reflects fair play, a dealer must know with reasonable certainty and must hm·e a fair warning as to what his obligation is, and what act of commis­ sion or omission on his part would constitute a criminal offence. Bearing in mind this principle the State Government ought to have expressed its intention clearly and unambiguously by including hydro­ genated oils within items 15 and 16 which refer to 'vanaspati'. If that were done, a type of predicament which arises in this case could easily have been avoided, and with profit to the community. We hope this lacu.na in the schedule will be rectified expeditiously. It is to be regretted but we are left with no option save to con­ firm the acqu.ittal, though for entirely different reasons. Therefore, while setting aside the reasoning of the liigh Court that there can be no contravention of clause 3 unless there i's also a contravention of clause 4 of the order of 1966, we dismiss the appeals and confirm the orders of acquittal on the ground of total lack of evidence showing that the respondents are dealers in 'vanaspati' and tha! they had kept 'vanaspati' for sale in their shops. S.R. Appeals dismissed.