Krishna Kumar And Anr. vs Sr. Supdt. Of Police And Ors. on 29 September, 1997
25. It will be inappropriate to compare the provisions of Control Order with that of Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. Food items are manufactured and sold by millions and their number is also very large. A restaurant: owner or sweet meat seller keeps on manufacturing food items almost continuously. Petrol or diesel is not manufactured or produced by dealers nor it is supplied by private manufactures. There are only four oil companies which are all government corporations which supply the product to the dealers. The Government Corporations are not expected and will not supply sub-standard or adulterated material and it can be presumed that the product supplied by them would be pure and would conform to the standards laid down by Indian Standards Institution. The dealer is only required to maintain the product in the same condition in which he had received it. There is no compulsion on any one to get a dealership of petrol or diesel. Any one who wants to be appointed as a dealer of an oil company does so by his own choice and after becoming a dealer he cannot be heard to complain that the Control Order by which he is governed does not give him a second opportunity to get the sample analysed again. We think that in view of the nature of the commodity involved, its source of supply being oil companies as defined in Clause 2(g) and the requirement being confined to variation of density within permissible limits as required by Schedule-I, a dealer cannot complain violation of Article 21 of the Constitution merely on the ground that a second opportunity to get the sample analysed is not provided to him.