- (1.) This is an appeal by special leave from the judgment of the Guiarat High Court convicting the appellant under Section 36 read with Section 8 of the Gujarat Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 20 of 1964 (referred to herein as "the Act"), and sentencing him to pay a fine of Rs. 10/-. The judgment of conviction was recorded by the High Court in an appeal from an order of acquittal passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Godhra.
(2.) An Inspector of Godhra Agricultural Produce Market Committee filed a complaint against the appellant charging him with having purchased a certain quantity of ginger in January and February, 1969 without obtaining a licence as required by the Act. The learned Magistrate accepted the factum of purchase but he acquitted the appellant on the ground that the relevant notification in regard to the inclusion of ginger was not shown to have been promulgated and published as required by the Act.
(3.) The case was tried by the learned Magistrate by the application of procedure appointed for summary trials. That circumstance together with the token sentence of fine imposed by the High Court gives to the case a petty appearance. But occasionally, matters apparently petty, seem on closer thought to contain points of importance though, regretfully, such importance comes to be realized by stages as the matter travels slowly from one court to another. As before the Magistrate so in the High Court, the matter failed to receive due attention: a fundamental premise on which the judgment of the High Court is based contains an assumption contrary to the record. Evidently, the attention of the High Court was not drawn either to the error of that assumption or to some of the more important aspects of the case which the parties have now perceived. .;