THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE GOPALA KRISHNA TAMADA CRIMINAL REVISION CASE No.204 of 2011 ORDER: Petitioner is the proprietor of Sri Sai Vasavi Kirana and General Stores, Gopalapuram village and mandal. On credible information, respondents herein inspected the business premises of the petitioner herein, on 20.03.2009 and found him doing clandestine business by not maintaining the accounts and registers properly and thereby contravened the provisions of Clause 3 of the APSCD (LS & R) Order, 2008 read with Section 6-A of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 (for brevity, ‘the Act’), resulting in occurrence of certain irregularities in the stock. Since no proper explanation was offered by the petitioner, the stock was seized and the matter was reported to the Joint Collector for initiation of necessary proceedings. Pursuant to the said reference, proceedings under Section 6-A of the Act have been initiated and the petitioner was served with notice calling for his explanation. The Joint Collector, Eluru, after holding an enquiry, rejected the contentions put forth by the petitioner, and found that the petitioner contravened the provisions of APSCD (LS & R) Order, 2008 read with Section 6-A of the Act, and accordingly, by order, dated 18.09.2009, ordered confiscation of 60% of the value of the seized stock. The said order, dated 18.09.2009, was questioned by filing an appeal in E.C.C.M.A.No.54 of 2009 under Section 6-C of the Act. By judgment, dated 21.10.2010, the learned Principal District Judge, Eluru, while holding that the finding arrived at by the Collector was correct, however, reduced the confiscation from 60% to 50% and directed the respondents to release 10% of the seized stock and if it is sold or not available the value thereof be refunded to the appellant. The said judgment is challenged in this revision. 2. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the order under revision is contrary to law, weight of evidence and probabilities of the case and therefore prays that the order impugned may be set aside. 4. Having considered the submissions and on perusal of the relevant material available on record, this Court is of the view that for the irregularities in the stock, petitioner could not offer proper explanation. In fact, the authorities below not being satisfied with the explanation offered by the petitioner for the irregularities in the stock, ordered confiscation. I see no merits in this revision. However, as the Court below has taken a lenient view and reduced the confiscation to 50%, this Court is of the view that further lenience should be shown and, accordingly, the confiscation is reduced to 25%. 5. With the above modification, the Criminal Revision Case is disposed of. _______________________________ GOPALA KRISHNA TAMADA,J 18th February, 2011. Tsy