HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY CRIMINAL PETITION No.3064 of 2008 ORDER: This Criminal Petition is filed by the Petitioners/A.3 & A.4 (for short ‘A.3 & A.4’) under Section 482 Cr.P.C., seeking to quash proceedings in C.C.No.190 of 2007 on the file of the Court of Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Bapatla registered for offences punishable under Sections 7(i), 2(ia)(j) and Sections 16(1-A)(i) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. 2. Whereas the Petitioners are A.3 & A.4, the Respondent is the complainant in the above said calendar case. For the sake of convenience, I refer the parties as arrayed in the calendar case. 3. A.1 to A.4 in the case were charged with offences punishable under Sections 7(i) 2(ia)(j) and Sections 16(1-A)(i) of the P.F.A Act, 1954 on the ground that A.1 owner of M/s.Srinivasa Agencies at Bapatla was in possession of adulterated Cadbury Fruit Gems whereas A.2 sold the same to A.1 and A.3 and A.4 were the manufacturers of it. 4. It is the contention of learned counsel for A.3 & A.4 that whereas the alleged incident took place and the complainant purchased required quantity as sample from A.1 for necessary analysis observing necessary formalities on 30.12.2006 as per the complaint the corresponding code number happened to be 45 W 6 M 2 and packing date happened to be December, 2006 and as per the invoice sent by A.3 to A.2 the corresponding batch number happened to be 2045 W6MK and month of packing of it happened to be November, 2006. Further as per the complainant itself the best before date is nine months from the date of packing but the corresponding notice was issued to the accused on 13.08.2007 i.e., beyond the said nine months period and by virtue of Section 13(2) of the Act the accused should have been given opportunity to send the next sample available to the Central Food Laboratory, Delhi for analysis in order to prove their innocence and because the notice was issued beyond the best before date they lost their opportunity to do so and hence as they also lost their opportunity to prove their innocence before the trial Court, the proceedings are to be quashed. 5. The point for consideration is: whether sufficient grounds are there to quash the proceedings on the grounds narrated by the learned counsel for A.3 and A.4? 6. When there is no dispute about the invoice, it is to be deemed that the package number and batch number given there under are also not disputed. Further it is pertinent to note here that the package date and code number or batch number given in the complainant do not tally with the package date and code number or batch number given in the invoice. When there are two different sets of package dates and code numbers or batch numbers and there is no clarification in that context, that which is favourable to the accused, is to be taken into consideration. Therefore the circumstances clearly show prima facie that within the best before date the notice was not issued and the accused were not given opportunity to take steps for sending the next sample to the Central Food Laboratory for analysis and report to establish their innocence in the matter. Therefore the further proceedings of the calendar case is nothing but abuse of process of law. 7. For the foregoing reasons, the petition is allowed. ___________________________ G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY, J Dated: 19-08-2011. vjl