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CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 934 of 1964. Appeal from the judgment and order dated January 13, 1964, of the Punjab High Court (Circuit Bench) at Delhi in Civil Writ No. 258-D of 1957.

Hardayal Hardy, B. Dutta, M. S. K. Sastri and J. B. Dadachanji, for the appellants.

C. K. Daphtary, Attorney-General R. K. P. Shankardass and R. H. Dhebar, for the respondents.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Gajendragadkar, C.J. The two appellants, the Hamdard Dawakhana (Wakf), Delhi, and its Mutawalli Haji Hakim Hameed, represent the Hamdard Dawakhana institution which was initially established in or about 1906 as a dawakhana and was subsequently declared and founded as a Wakf. Since its inception, the institution has been running dispensaries and clinics for the treatment of patients and has been manufacturing and supplying medicines and medicinal products according to Ayurvedic and Unani Systems of medicines. Appellant No. 1 also manufactures medicated syrups which contain some fruit juices for medicinal use and they are prepared according to a certain formula devised by it.

By their writ petition, the appellants prayed that the impugned order as well as the several orders passed preceding it, should be quashed and a writ of mandamus should be issued against the respondents restraining them from seeking to enforce the material provisions of the Fruit Order in respect of the appellants' product 'Sharbat Rooh Afza'. The appellants urged that the said Sharbat is not a foodstuff, but a medicinal product and as such, its produc- tion cannot be regulated under the provisions of s. 3 of the Act. According to them, the said Sharbat was not an essential commodity, nor was it a 'fruit product' as defined by clause 2(d) of the fruit Order. They also urged that the impugned order was invalid, because it contravened the fundamental rights of the appellants under Art. 19(1)(f)&(g) of the Constitution; the Sharbat in question was in fact a medicinal product and as such, the impugned order was inconsistent with clause 16 (1) (c) of the Fruit Order. It is on these grounds that the appellants sought relief by way of an appropriate writ or order quashing the impugned order issued against them on May 10, 1957. To this petition, the appellants impleaded the Union of India as respondent No. 1. This petition was resisted by the respondents on several grounds. It was alleged that the Sharbat in question fell within the scope of the Act and the Fruit Order. The respondents referred to the fact that the Hamdard Dawakhana had duly applied and was granted a licence in 1955 as a manufacturer engaged in the business of manufacturing fruit products for sale. The Dawakhana is holding this licence since 1955. The bottles in which the Sharbat in question is sold by the appellants do not bear labels containing the words "for medicinal use only". It appears that the Dawakhana obtained a licence for the year 1952 under the Fruit Products Order 1948 for the manufacture of the Sharbat in question. On analysis, it was found that the said Sharbat did not contain fruit juice, though it was sold as fruit juice. The label ,on the bottle of the Sharbat depicts pictures of fruits. Under the said Order of 1948 the synthetic syrups containing no fruit juice were required to be clearly marked as 'synthetic' and to abstain from using labels with pictures of fruits. In 1954 when it was found that the Dawakhana did not get the licence renewed, the appellants were asked either to get their licence renewed or to get exemption by complying with the necessary conditions. When the appellants did not comply with these directions, some of the bottles of the Sharbat were detained in the market. That led to a writ petition filed by the appellants in 1.954 (No. 11-D/1954) in the Punjab High Court. When the petition, however, came for final hearing, it was not pressed, and so, was dismissed on June 5, 1954. The Dawakhana then filed a suit for injunction, but the said suit became infructuous with the expiry of the Fruit Products Order, 1948 on January 25, 1955. The present Fruit Order came into force on May 3, 1955; and the Dawakhana filed another suit for injunction, but pending the suit, the appellants applied for and obtained a licence under the Fruit Order and in consequence, the suit was withdrawn on October 18, 1955. Even after obtaining the licence, the requirements of the relevant provisions of the Fruit Order as to the minimum percentage of fruit juice were not complied with by the appellants; and that led to the impugned order. That is the background of the present writ petition.