Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Purshotam Dass Jhunjunwala and Others

.- - . ' FAZAL Au,'J. This appeal by special° leave is directed· against a 'judgment dated 5.3.1980 of the Delhi High Court by which the High. Court. quashed .the proceedings taken ·by .the Municipal _ -Corporation of Delhi against respondent. Nos. I to ll. This is a ·-case where the facts arc almost identical with1the facts of Criminal Appeal No. 701' of 1980 which we have decided today, with a vital difference which we shall point out hereafter. _ .Io thiscase also, Shri M.M. Gupta, Food Inspector. in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi purchased a sample of-milk toffees · from shop of Jagdish Chander Mehta situate at Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi. · Tte milk toffees which were purchased by .the food inspector were found to be adulterated by the Public Analyst. The toffees / in this case were manufactured by Hindustan Sugar Mills, 51, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bombay. A complaint was filed before .the Metro­ politan Magistrate against accused Nos. I to 12 under sections 7/16/17 ·of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act mentioning the facts stated above. . ./ The High Court was of the view that the complaint· did not B disclose any offence and adopting a similar line of reasoning, as in criminal' appeal No .. 701 of 1980, quashed the proceedings against -respondent Nos. l to 11. We have already dealt, with the law on the subject in our decision in criminal appeal No. 701 of 1980, a , copy of which is placed on the file of this case. The relevant allega- · ~ tions against tha accused-respondents are to be found in para S of F-. :._:_ the complaint which may be extracied thus : "'""-- ·.,, . • · . "S, .. That accused .Ram Kishan Bajaj is the Chairman, accused R.P. Neyatia is the Managing Director and accused Nos. '7 to 12 are the Director( of the Hindustan Sugar Mills Ltd. and were incharge of and responsible to it for the con­ duct of its business at the-time of commission of offence." . -,_ -- - Unllk~ the other case, para S of the complaint of this case gives complete details of the role played by the respondents and _the extent , of their liability; It is clearly mentioned that Ram Kishan Bajaj is the Chairman and · R.P: Neyatia is the Managing Director and res· pondents 7 to 11 are the Directors of the Mill and were inc?arge of .• , ., MUNiciPAL CORPN. v. P.b. JHU~IUNWALA (Fazai Ali,/) 897 and respo~sible for the conduct of its business at the time of the A commission 9f the offence whereas in the other case the complaint has merely drawn a presumption without any averment. In the instant case, a clear averment ha_s been made regarding .the active role played by the respondents and the extent of their ' liability. In this view of the matter, it cannot be said that para 5 of the complaint is vague and does not implicate respondents I to 11. As to what would be the eviderce against the respondents is not a matter to be considered at this stage and would have to be proved at the trial. We have already held that for the purpose of quashing the proceedings only the allegations set forth in the complaint have to be seen and nothing further. From a perusal of the various clauses of the complaint, includ ing para 5, it is quite clear that a prima facie case for summoning the accused has been made out and the High Court was absolutely wrong in holding that the allegations made in para 5 are vague. The • High Court failed to consider that the allegations were quite clear and explicit so as to be sufficient for taking cognizance of the offence again~! the accused. Further details would have to be ~iven in the shape of evidence when the trial proceeds and in view of the _clear allegations made in E para 5 of the complaint, we are not in a position to agree with the High Court that it is a fit case in which it should have exercised its discretion under s. 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 in order to quash the proceedings against the accused-respo_ndents. For these reasons, therefore, we allow this appeal, set aside the judgment of the High Court and restore thai of the Metropolitan Magistrate as a result of which all the accused will now be summoned and placed for trial in accordance with law. H.L.C. Appeal allowed.