IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD WEDNESDAY, THE NINETH DAY OF SEPTEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND NINE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD Criminal Petition No.7190 of 2009 Between: K. Srinivas Rao .. Petitioner AND State of Andhra Pradesh, reptd. by Public Prosecutor and another .. Respondents HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD Criminal Petition No.7190 of 2009 ORDER: Heard Sri P. Kalyan Ram, learned counsel representing Sri Ch. Dhanamjaya, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri A. Ramesh, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor for both the respondents. The petitioner is arrayed as fourth accused in C.C.No.323 of 2006 on the file of the Court of II Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Bhimavaram, for the alleged violations of the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 (for short “the Act”). The contents of the complaint by the Drugs Inspector, Bhimavaram, show that the fourth accused was stated to be the person who sold the subject drug to the fifth accused under a receipt and that the fourth accused himself claimed to have purchased the said drug from the second accused under purchase invoices, with the second accused being represented by the first accused. The complaint clearly alleged A-1 to A-3 to be the manufacturers of the drug in question, which was stated to be not of a standard quality and the petitioner/fourth accused is sought to be implicated only for selling the said drug, which is not of a standard quality. Sri P. Kalyan Ram, learned counsel for the petitioner, relied o n Medicamen Biotech Limited and another v. Rubina Bose, Drug Inspector[1] for the proposition that where the accused is deprived of his valuable right under Section 25 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 due to the delay till after the expiry of the shelf life of the sample drug, the criminal proceedings are liable to be quashed. Learned counsel also relied on the decision of this Court in Criminal Petition No.2997 of 2001, dated 27-08-2001, wherein it was held that sellers of the drug without any knowledge of the sub-standard quality of the drug cannot be attributed with any criminal liability. The learned counsel further referred to another decision of this Court in Criminal Petition No.109 of 2008, decided on 11-02-2008, wherein the learned Judge referred to sub- section 3 of Section 30 of the Insecticides Act, 1968, which gives protection to the person, who is neither an importer nor a manufacturer of an insecticide from any liability against contravention of the provisions of that Act unless he has knowledge about the contents of the insecticide being substandard or misbranded or unless he tampered with the insecticide in question, while he is in possession. The principle of Section 30 (3) of the Insecticides Act, 1968 is contended to be the same as under Section 19 (3) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. The factual matrix of the present case indisputably shows that Section 19 (3) of the Act gives a blanket protection to the retailer in this regard like the protection given under Section 30 (3) of the Insecticides Act, 1968, apart from the delay in filing the complaint till after the expiry of the period of shelf life of the drug in question probably depriving the petitioner of the right to have the sample of the drug reanalyzed. The very protection under Section 19 (3) of the Act should come to the aid of the petitioner when even the charge sheet does not allege that the petitioner had in any way meddled with the subject drug after receiving from the accused 1 to 3 and before selling it to the fifth accused. Under the circumstances, the criminal petition has to succeed. Therefore, the further proceedings in C.C.No.323 of 2006 on the file of the Court of II Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Bhimavaram, against the petitioner are quashed and the Criminal Petition is allowed accordingly. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 09-09-2009 Ksn [1] (2008) 3 Supreme Court Cases (Crl.) 20