THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE GOPALA KRISHNA TAMADA CRIMINAL REVISION CASE No.207 of 2011 ORDER: On credible information, respondents herein inspected M/s Muralikrishna General Merchants and Commissioner Agents, Tadepalligudem, belonging to the petitioner herein, on 24.02.2007 and found him doing business in pulses unauthorisedly without obtaining any licence from the concerned authorities and thereby contravened the provisions of Clause 3 of the APSCD (L & D) Order, 1982 (amendment order) 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, the proceedings under Section 6-A of the Act has 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 Clause 3 of the APSCD (L & D) Order, 1982 (amendment order) read with Section 6-A of the Act and accordingly, by order, dated 24.03.2008, ordered confiscation of 75% of the value of the seized stock. The said order, dated 24.03.2008, was questioned by filing an appeal in E.C.C.M.A.No.21 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 75% to 50% and directed the respondents to release 25% 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 Court below failed to consider the fact whether the petitioner comes under the definition of commission agent as defined under G.O.Ms.No.64, dated 23-09-2006, when he is not doing any trade on his own accord and providing a platform for farmers to offer their stocks for sale, and hence the question of indulging in any clandestine business by the petitioner herein does not arise. 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, the 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