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5. When the matter came up before the Sessions Court on appeal by the respondent, it was for the first time argued before the Sessions Court that the written consent Ext. P-2 was an antedated document and that though the Administrator Agartala Municipality has purported to sign in the document on 17-4-1958 it cannot have been signed by him on that date but only subsequently. It was pointed out that in paragraph 8 of the complaint dated 18-4-1958 the fact that the written consent was given on 17-4-1958 was not mentioned and further that the written consent was actually produced into Court only on 16-8-1958 and hence it must have been antedated to satisfy the requirements of Section 20 of the Act. This argument found favour with the Sessions Judge and he held that the sanction order had been clearly antedated and hence the Magistrate had no-jurisdiction to take cognizance of the offence as there-was no sanction order before him.

8. The learned Sessions Judge has gone further and characterised the written consent Ext. P-2 purporting to have been given by the Administrator on 17-4-1958 as an antedated document. This finding is somewhat surprising to me. I do not know whether the Sessions Judge himself realised the full import of such a finding. It amounts to stating that a responsible Officer like the Collector and District Magistrate of Tripura who is the Administrator of the Agartala Municipality has been guilty of deliberately antedating a written consent required under Section 20 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act in order to see that the prosecution against the respondent herein which was originally instituted without such a written consent should not fail on the ground of want of sanction.

The respondent himself did not contend in the Magistrate's Court that Ext. P-2 was antedated. No such suggestion was made to P. W. 1 in cross-examination. The only suggestion was that he did not take the permission of the proper authority according to the provisions of Section 20. This is certainly not a suggestion of the document having been deliberately antedated. If such a suggestion had been made to P. W. 1 or if such a defence had at all been raised in the Magistrate's Court, the prosecution would have had an opportunity to examine the Administrator to prove that he signed it on 17-4-1958. A perusal of the appeal grounds in the Sessions Court does not also show that the plea of antedating of Ext. P-2 was taken in the appellate Court.

9-10. Now, let us see the points relied on by the Sessions Judge to hold that Ext. P-2 was antedated. (His Lordship considered these points and proceeded).

I. must therefore express my disagreement with the Sessions Judge that Ext. P-2 was an antedated document. The learned Magistrate was right in treating Ext. P-2 as a proper sanction order within the meaning of Section 20 and the learned Sessions Judge was wrong in basing his acquittal of the respondent on such a finding.

11. Now we shall go into the merits of the case. The respondent was charged under Section 16(l)(a) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act for contravening Section 7(ii) of the Act, The charge against him was that he was guilty of misbranding the mustard oil which he had stored for sale in his godown. As to actual facts there is no dispute. The respondent was caught by P. W. 1 filling the 18 tins, which were marked Exts. M-l to M-18 with mustard oil from a big barrel containing 5 to 6 maunds of oil and sealing the said 18 tins with lead.