When is a food article 'misbranded' under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act?

Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 — s.16 — Misbranding — Made out — Held: Where food packets are kept for sale without the manufacturer's complete address and the date of manufacture, they are misbranded within the Act, and the concurrent findings of conviction under Section 16(1)(a)(i) read with Section 7 are sustained. Constitution of India — Art. 20(1) — Bars only greater, not lesser, punishment — Held further: Article 20(1) prohibits only a punishment greater than that in force when the offence was committed; it does not bar a court from awarding the lesser punishment prescribed by a later law, and beneficial construction permits that mitigation. Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 — s.52 — Misbranding now fine only — Sentence converted — Held further: Under Section 52 of the FSSA, 2006, misbranding attracts only a fine and no imprisonment; applying the beneficial later law, the sentence of imprisonment was converted to a fine. Appeal partly allowed.

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“32. Package of food to carry a label: -- (a) ………… (b) ………… (c) The name and complete address of the manufacturer or importer or vendor or packer. (d) ……….. (e) ……….. (f) The month and year in which the commodity is manufactured or prepacked.” Therefore, this contention of the learned counsel for the appellant regarding non-applicability of the provision is not correct. There are concurrent findings of three Courts below and there is absolutely no question of us having any measure of doubt as to the findings, inasmuch as that the packets which were taken from shop/godown of the 5 appellants were misbranded as defined under Section 2(ix)(k) of the Act, as they were not labelled in accordance with the requirements of the Act or the Rules made thereunder. The only question which now remains is of sentence. The plea here is of reduction of sentence and if only fine can be imposed, which is permissible as per the law currently applicable.

“(1) No person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the commission of the act charged as an offence, nor be subjected to a penalty greater than that which might have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of the commission of the offence. (2) ………. (3) ……….” The above provision has been interpretated several times by this Court and broadly the mandate here is that a person cannot be punished for an offence which was not an offence at the time it was committed, nor can he be subjected to a sentence which is greater than the sentence which was applicable at the relevant point of time. All the same, the above provision does not prohibit this Court, to award a 6 lesser punishment in a befitting case, when this Court is of the opinion that a lesser punishment may be awarded since the new law on the penal provision provides a lesser punishment i.e. lesser than what was actually applicable at the relevant time. The prohibition contained in Article 20 of the Constitution of India is on subjecting a person to a higher punishment than which was applicable for that crime at the time of the commission of the crime. There is no prohibition, for this Court to impose a lesser punishment which is now applicable for the same crime.

“52. Penalty for misbranded food. (1) Any person who whether by himself or by any other person on his behalf manufactures for sale or stores or sells or distributes or imports any article of food for human consumption which is misbranded, shall be liable to a penalty which may extend to three lakh rupees. (2) The Adjudicating Officer may issue a direction 7 to the person found guilty of an offence under this section, for taking corrective action to rectify the mistake or such article of food shall be destroyed.” Whether the appellant can be granted the benefit of the new legislation and be awarded a lesser punishment as is presently prescribed under the new law? This Court in T. Barai v. Henry Ah Hoe (1983) 1 SCC 177, had held that when an amendment is beneficial to the accused it can be applied even to cases pending in Courts where such a provision did not exist at the time of the commission of offence. It was said as under:-

“22. It is only retroactive criminal legislation that is prohibited under Article 20(1). The prohibition contained in Article 20(1) is that no person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the commission of the act charged as an offence prohibits nor shall he be subjected to a penalty greater than that which might have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of the commission of the offence. It is quite clear that insofar as the Central Amendment Act creates new offences or enhances punishment for a particular type of offence no person can be convicted by such ex post facto law nor can the enhanced punishment prescribed by the amendment be applicable. But insofar as the Central Amendment Act reduces the punishment for an offence punishable under Section 16(1)(a) of the Act, there is no 8 reason why the accused should not have the benefit of such reduced punishment. The rule of beneficial construction requires that even ex post facto law of such a type should be applied to mitigate the rigour of the law. The principle is based both on sound reason and common sense.” A reference to the above case was given by this Court in Nemi Chand v. State of Rajasthan (2018) 17 SCC 448 where six months of imprisonment awarded under the Act was modified to only a fine of Rs.50,000/-. The above principle was applied by this Court again in Trilok Chand v. State of Himachal Pradesh, (2020) 10 SCC 763 and the sentence of three months of imprisonment and Rs.500/- of fine for misbranding under the Act, 1954 was modified to that of only a fine of Rs.5,000/-.