A.S. Bains, J. - (1.) The petitioner was convicted and sentenced under section 16(l)(a)(i) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months and to pay a fine of Rs. 1000.00 or in default of payment of fine to further undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months, by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jullundur. On appeal his conviction and sentence were maintained by the learned Sessions Judge. He has now come up in revision before this Court.
(2.) The petitioner was prosecuted and charged on the report of the Public Analyst who found deficiency in solid not fat contents. At the instance of the petitioner, the sample was sent to the Director, Central Food Laboratory, Calcutta. According to the report of the Director, there was deficiency in milk fat contents. On the basis of the aforesaid report the petitioner was convicted and sentenced. But when he was examined under section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure the report of the Director, Central Food Laboratory was not put to him. In similar circumstances, this Court in Municipal Committee, Amritsar Vs. Om Parkash, 1969 P. L. R. 793 , has observed as under:- "The conclusion which must be reached, therefore, is that the principle which enjoins on the trial Court to offer to the accused an opportunity of explaining the circumstances appearing in the evidence against him has to be followed irrespective of the source which supplies such evidence. However, it may be stated that in the instant case the Director's certificate has for all practical purposes become part of the prosecution evidence inasmuch as it has superseded and, therefore, replaced the Public Analyst's report on which the prosecution relied and had to R.I. for a conviction of the respondent till its (the certificate's) receipt. It is true that it was the respondent who asked fora fresh analysis of the sample by the Director, but the analysis itself was done and the certificate is sought to b; used against the respondent by virtue of a special statutory provision to the benefit of which both the prosecution and the respondent are entitled and which obliterates the Public Analyst's report and substitutes instead the Director's certificate. As a necessary consequence of that provision, the prosecution evidence must be read after the receipt of the certificate as if the certificate had taken the place of the Public Analyst's report in regard to which the examination of the respondent already made by the trial Court (Questions and Answers Nos. 5, 6 and 7 reproduced in an earlier part of this judgment) must be deemed to have become redundant. The result is that even if the contention that the circumstances appearing in the prosecution evidence alone have to be put to the accused (which contention we have already repelled) were acceptable, it would be of no assistance to the appellant's case."
(3.) No authority taking contrary view has been cited by the learned counsel for the State.;