Crl. Misc. No. M-33145 of 2009 [1] IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. Crl. Misc. No. M-33145 of 2009 Date of Decision: November 29, 2011 Mukesh Kumar …..Petitioner Vs. U.T. Chandigarh …..Respondent CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M.S. BEDI. -.- Present:- Mr. Atul Lakhanpal, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Arjun Lakhanpal, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr.D.D. Sharma, Advocate for UT. -.- M.M.S. BEDI, J. Petitioner seeks the concession of pre-arrest bail in a case registered on the basis of an information received by the police to the effect that spurious ghee had been unloaded at Chamba Manali Transport Company, Village Daria. The police on visiting the spot found 180 cases of spurious Ghee with mark Verka on them from the said Godown of the transport company. Statement of Dheeraj Gupta, Manager of the Company Crl. Misc. No. M-33145 of 2009 [2] was recorded to the effect that on October 5, 2009, 206 cases of Desi Ghee were unloaded at the said godown after having been transported from Delhi in a Truck No. HR-37-8590. The said consignment was meant for Mukesh Kumar. Mukesh Kumar had visited their godown and taken away 26 cases of Verka Ghee in his Car with promise to collect 180 cases in some big vehicle after some time but he did not return. The officials of the Health Department, U.T. Chandigarh and Verka were summoned on the spot. The officials of the Health Department took sample of spurious Verka Ghee and the remaining ghee was taken in police possession and deposited in malkhana of Police Station Industrial Area and during the course of investigation on October 9, 2009, the General manager of Verka made a complaint to the police that the quality hologram of Verka/ Milkfed was not existing on the ghee tins. Customer Care number and e-mail address of the manufacturing plant was also not mentioned on the tins. The date of manufacturing, batch number, MRP was also not embossed on the tins as per the standard practice of Verka. It also transpired that on some of the boxes name of the manufacturer on the cardboard boxes was mentioned as Gurdaspur District Coop. Milk Producers Union Limited. The individual tins contained a marking that the ghee had been manufactured by Sangrur District Coop. Milk Producers Union Ltd. The petitioner apprehending arrest in the abovesaid case seek the concession of pre-arrest bail alleging that the petitioner is neither the manufacturer nor the alleged spurious ghee has been found from the possession of the petitioner. It was contended that FIR cannot be registered Crl. Misc. No. M-33145 of 2009 [3] as the offence under Trade Mark Act is non-cognizable. The provisions of the Food Adulteration Act deal with the sale of adulterated ghee. It was contended that the offence under Copy Right Act and Trade Mark Act are non-cognizable and are bailable as such the petitioner should be granted the concession of pre-arrest bail. I have heard counsel for the petitioner and carefully gone through the entire police file. On the basis of the material available on the police file, it is prima facie apparent that consignment of Desi Ghee had been booked under the name of the petitioner. He had taken part of the consignment. The report of the Public Analyst, Punjab, has established that spurious ghee under the name of Verka Manufacturing Company has been brought by the petitioner in the godown of Chamba Manali Transport Company. The petitioner, no doubt, has joined investigation but his modus operandi to obtain spurious ghee purported to have been manufactured by Verka and its disbursal to the purchasers requires to be investigated in order to find out whether the petitioner has fraudulently cheated any customer. The investigation is at initial stage. Grant of pre-arrest bail to the petitioner will certainly hamper the investigation. The formality of mere joining the investigation and not fairly cooperating in the investigation to enable the investigating agency to arrive at a just conclusion regarding the modus operandi of fraudulent transactions is of no consequence. No extraordinary exceptional circumstances exist to grant the concession of pre-arrest bail to the petitioner at this stage. Dismissed. Crl. Misc. No. M-33145 of 2009 [4] November 29, 2011 (M.M.S.BEDI) sanjay JUDGE