VENKATRAO NARAYANRAO AMBEKAR Vs. ALMA SUGAR MILLS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal preferred on behalf of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee of Aurangabad challenging the order of acquittal passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, of Aurangabad in Summary Case No. 646 of 1974. The appellant, hereinafter referred to as the complainant is the Secretary of the Mar- keting Committee and the respondent No. 1, hereinafter referred to as the accused is the Manager of a Sugar Mills situated at village Phulamri on the out-skirt of Aurangabad city. There is no dispute that the area in which the Sugar Mills is situated comes within the market area as defined under the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Act, 1963, of Aurangabad. The prosecution was launched by the complainant charging the accused with the offence punishable under Section 6 (1) (a) and (b) read with Section 46 of the aforesaid Act which will hereinafter be referred to as the Act of 1964. The prosecution case was that the accused was operating in the marketing area, over which the complainant has jurisdiction, as a trader and also as a processor of the declared agricultural produce. It was also alleged by the prosecution that the accused was operating in some other capacity in relation to the marketing of the declared produce. Such operation is prohibited by Section 6 of the Act of 1964 except in accordance with the terms and conditions of the licence which is to be granted under the provisions of the Act of 1964. Admittedly the accused has not obtained such a licence. The Mills of which the accused is the Manager is a manufacturer of sugar but it has come in evidence that it manufactures Khandsari sugar. I must proceed on the basis that the accused is the manufacturer of Khandsari sugar and not sugar. The importance of this distinction will be evident when I consider the defence of the accused.

(2.) In the trial court the defence of the accused was that he was not liable to obtain any licence because under Section 5 of Maharashtra Purchase Tax on Sugarcane Act 1962, hereinafter referred to as the Act of 1962 a licence has been obtained by him. The learned trial Magistrate accepted this defence and held that it was not necessary for the accused to obtain a licence under the Act of 1964. The learned trial Magistrate also found that the manufacture of sugar from the raw material of sugarcane does not amount to processing of an agricultural produce which is sugarcane. He also held that the marketing of sugar by the accused at the factory premises does not amount to using any place in the marketing area for trading in sugar though the sugar is agricultural produce. In view of these findings the learned trial Magistrate acquitted the accused of the offence with which he was charged. The order of acquittal is of 25th Feb. 1976 and is the subject matter of challenge in this appeal.

(3.) The contention that the licence obtained under Section 5 of the Act of 1962 dispenses with the necessity of obtaining licence under Section 6 of the Act of 1964 is too absurd to be accepted and happily has not been repeated here. The two Acts deal with two different subjects and operate in altogether different fields.