Delhi High Court
Municipal Corporation Of Delhi vs Amar Singh on 7 January, 1988
Equivalent citations: 1988(15)DRJ74
JUDGMENT
(1) In all the above appeals, the acquittal of the respondents for offence punishable under Section 7 read with Section 16 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, (for short the Act) has been challenged. A preliminary objection, however, has been raised by the respondents that the appeals are barred by limitation as the applications seeking special leave to appeal were filed after the expiry of sixty days computed from the date of the orders of acquittal. The case of the appellants is that the applications are to be held to have been filed by a public servant and, therefore, those could have been and were in fact filed within six months of the dates of orders of acquittal.
(2) It is also admitted that in all these cases the Food Inspectors of the Corporation had lifted the samples for analysis after 1st April, 1976. This date is relevant as Section 20 of the said Act was amended w.e.f. that date. Prior to the amendment, the Corporation being the local authority', was entitled to institute the complaint.
(3) In the present cases the complaints were filed by the State and the Corporation through Shri R.N. Gujral, Assistant Municipal Prosecutor, Municipal Corporation of Delhi. He had been authorised to institute and conduct prosecution and other legal proceedings. In this respect it is useful to quote paragraph 4 of the complaint averred in practically each complaint "4.That the Director of Health Services, Delhi Administration has given consent for instituting and conducting the prosecution against the above accused."
(4) Although the complaint is entitled State & M.C.D. v. Amar Singh, the addition of the Corporation as complainant was infact redundant. Whether the complaint filed by Shri R.N. Gujral on the basis of the consent given by the Director of Health Services can be said to be a complaint by a public servant, is the real question for determination. If the complainant was a public servant within the purview of Section 378(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the period of limitation for filing an appeal is no doubt six months.
(5) Mr. B.B. Lal, learned counsel for the respondents in some of the appeals submits that a complaint can be considered to have been filed by -a public servant when that public servant has a statutory independent right to file a complaint. According to him where that public servant is to seek permission or is to be authorised to file a complaint, then in that case he is merely an agent for this purpose and the complaint in that event is not a complaint by public servant. He has brought to our notice provisions of various acts where a designated public servant is authorised under the relevant Act to file a complaint, the Delhi Development Act is one of the Acts where the Secretary has the statutory right to file a complaint because he has been termed as a person aggrieved. Under the Income Tax Act also, such a provision exists. In the present' cases it is urged that Shri Gujral had independently no statutory right to file a complaint and has to be termed merely as an agent of the State who had been given the consent in writing to do the needful. In support of his submission that Shri Gujral was merely an agent and thus the complaint has to be treated to have been filed by the State only, he relies on Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Jagdish Lal and others, Fac 1973 266, wherein it was held by the Supreme Court that even if the complaint had been filed by and in the name of a person authorised in that behalf by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, it was the Corporation who was the complainant. He submits that the principle of law laid down by the Supreme Court in the said case continues to apply even after the amendment of the Act, i.e., 1st April, 1976.
(6) Mr. Lal submits that in the present cases also, by filing the complaints, Shri Gujral cannot be said to have been acting on his own personal behalf ; he was acting as an agent authorised by a functionary of the State to file the complaints. It must, therefore, be deemed in the contemplation of law that the State was the complainant and not Shri Gujral. In fact the State filed it as is apparent from the title of the complaint, it is urged. We agree with him. We are not called upon to go into the question as to what would be the position in law in the event of Director of Health Services himself filing the complaint. From the reading of the consent (Ex. Public Witness I/B) quoted above, it has to be held that Shri R.N. Gujral was merely being appointed as an agent to file the complaints. As the complaints in all these cases were not filed by a public servant as contemplated within the purview of Section 378(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the present appeals cannot be held to be maintainable. All of them have been filed beyond the period of sixty days and thus are liable to be dismissed. We hold accordingly and dismiss appeals