- (1.) A common question of law arises in these two groups of cases which may conveniently he dealt with and disposed of together. The question that falls to be determined is the true effect of Sub-section (2) of Section 473 occurring in Chapter XXVIII of the Calcutta Municipal Act, 1951. That Sub-section lays the burden of proving that any food or drug is not intended for human consumption or for sale on the party charged in a prosecution instituted under that Chapter. The consequence which such provision entails on the general question of onus of proving commission of an offence under the Chapter and the effect of it on the specific statutory presumption raised by Sub-section (4) of Section 462 of the Act requires consideration.
(2.) The Corporation of Calcutta is the Petitioner in each of these cases comprised in the two groups and the opposite parties in each are a firm known under the name of Sree Ram Chundan Mull and its proprietors Sriram Agarwalla, Chandan Mall Agarwalla and Moman Chand Agarwalla. The firm deals in tea and its godown which is at 17 Manick Bose Ghat Street, Calcutta, was visited by two Food Inspectors of the Corporation of Calcutta on June 8, 1954, at two different hours of the same evening. Samples of tea were taken by each of the two Inspectors from different lots of tea stored in the godown. Each sample was divided into three parts as required under the law and they were sent to a public analyst for examination and report. The reports revealed that the samples had in most cases been found to be adulterated. Thereafter the firm of Sree Ram Chundan Mull and its proprietors, who are all opposite patries in these Rules, were prosecuted for contravention of Section 462 of the Calcutta Municipal Act, 1951, which prohibits storing for sale of certain articles including tea which are not of the prescribed standard of purity.
(3.) The visit of each of the two Food Inspectors to the godown premises led to several samples of tea being taken from different lots kept in the godown. For each of such sample as had been found to be adulterated, a prosecution was started; and the samples taken by each of the two Inspectors having been taken in the course of the same transaction, the cases instituted at the instance of each Inspector were tried together by the learned Municipal Magistrate. The result is that there have been two groups of four cases comprised in each group. On request, it appears, the learned Magistrate dealt with the cases together in two groups which have thus given rise to these eight Revision petitions.;