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4. Shri Mankapure submitted that the offence under Sections 188, 272 and 273 of IPC are bailable. So is the offence under Section 59 of the said Act. His main thrust of argument was that Section 328 of IPC is not attracted in this case. He relied on various judgments in that behalf.

5. Learned A.P.P. opposed this application. She submitted that recently a Single Judge Bench of this Court has taken into consideration the history behind such judgments and has held in the case of Vinod Ramnath Gupta Vs. State of Maharashtra decided on 6.11.2020 in ABA (St.) No.2451/2020 that in such a case Section 328 of IPC is attracted and, therefore, it is a non-bailable offence.

6. Shri Mankapure relied on various judgments in support of his case, which are discussed in the following paragraphs.

7. I have considered these submissions. The controversy basically is in respect of interpretation of Section 328 of IPC. There are different judgments of different Benches of this Court regarding interpretation of Section 328 of IPC.

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8. The main plank of arguments of Shri Mankapure is the judgment of a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Anand Ramdhani Chaurasia and another Vs. State of Maharashtra and others passed in Criminal Writ Petition No.3607/2019 pronounced on 13.9.2019. In this judgment, it was held that Section 328 of IPC, in such cases, is not attracted because it could not be said that the accused in such cases caused any person to consume these banned articles.

9. The judgment in Anand Chaurasia (supra) was followed by another Division Bench of this Court (Aurangabad Bench) in the case of Ganesh Pandurang Jadhao and another Vs. State of Maharashtra and others in Criminal Writ Petition No.1027/2015 pronounced on 15.10.2020.

12. Thus the manufacturing unsafe food articles, moving these goods from the manufacturing unit to market for its sale is an event and that any action in chain of circumstances which foreseeably leads to and facilitates the sale of food articles is further event may be said to be a cause of that event to bring the action within the expression', "causes to be taken by a person", any poison with intent to cause hurt to such person, in terms Section 328 of the IPC. In my view, the offence under Section 328 of IPC, essentially is not causing someone (another person) else to do prohibited act but 'causing' a person to consume food articles knowing well that its consumption would hurt such person. Even otherwise in the proceeding like in hand where investigation is at initial stage, and the relevant material is yet to be collected; it may not be appropriate to hold that FIR does not make out an offence under Section 328 of IPC. In the consideration of facts of the case, I am not inclined to grant pre-arrest protection to the applicants. Applications are rejected. Interim pre-arrest protection granted, is vacated."