THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE GOPALA KRISHNA TAMADA CRIMINAL REVISION CASE No.1801 of 2010 DATED: 07-10-2010 ORDER: This Criminal Revision Case is directed against the judgment, dated 28-07-2010, passed by the learned Principal Sessions Judge, Warangal, in Crl.A.No.112 of 2009, whereby the learned Judge reduced the confiscation of 20% as ordered by the Collector (CS), Warangal, to that of 10%. 2. Brief facts of the case are that on credible information, the Grain Purchasing Assistant, Warangal along with other staff members proceeded to ‘Balaji Rice Mill’, situate at Fort Road, Warangal, inspected the rice mill and found rice, broken rice and paddy. When the said Grain Purchasing Assistant directed the owner of the said rice mill i.e., the petitioner herein to produce the relevant records, he stated that he filed the original licence in the office of the DSO, Warangal and the stock register is with the Auditor. Not satisfied with the said explanation, the entire stock was seized and the matter was reported to the Collector for initiation of proceedings under the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 (for brevity, ‘the Act’). The Collector in turn initiated the said proceedings under Section 6-B of the Act, for which the petitioner offered a detailed explanation. Further, the Collector, having considered the said explanation and also the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner, held as follows: “As per the record the mill is having 1 ton capacity and delivered 1100 mts of raw rice to the FCI crop year 2008-09. As per Clause 10 (1) of the A.P.Scheduled Commodities Dealers (Licensing, Storage and Regulation) Order, 2008 the stock limit for Trading Rice Mills is 4,000 Installed capacity of the Rice miller Maximum stock limit in tones ½ ton paddy per hour 1,800 Mts 1 tonne paddy per hour 3,600 Mts quintals, where as the respondent has stored only 255.00 quintals of rice, which falls under preview of the Control Order, 2008. According to the G.O.Ms.No.49 CA, F&CS Dept, dated 25-11- 2008, paddy stock limit for rice millers are as follows: As the miller has stored 75.00 quintals of paddy which is under permissible limit and the Food Grain Licence No.353/WGL/08 was also renewed up 30-09-2009. Whereas the respondent has not shown the records to the inspecting officers during the time of inspection thus violated conditions 3 to 10 of the licence issued under the A.P.Scheduled Commodities Dealers (Licensing, Storage and Regulation) Order, 2008”. and thus, restricted the confiscation to 20% of the seized stock. The said order was questioned by filing Crl.A.No.112 of 2009 before the learned Principal Sessions Judge, Warangal, and the learned Sessions Judge, as stated supra, while concurring with the said finding, however, taking a lenient view reduced the said 20% confiscation to 10% and the same is questioned in this revision. 3. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that during the inspection, no variation is found and even the authorities below have categorically held that there are no variations and the only violation is non-production of the stock register for which an explanation was offered stating that the said stock register was with the Auditor. 4. In the light of the said contention, this Court looked into the order passed by the authorities below. From a perusal of the said order, it is clear that the petitioner failed to produce the stock register and when questioned by the Inspecting party he stated that the same is with the Auditor and that the food grains licence was sent for renewal. In my considered view, the said explanation appears to be correct. When there is no variation and a detailed explanation is offered stating that the stock register is with the auditor, the authorities ought to have verified the said fact in coming to the conclusion whether there is any violation or not. As the said violation is very trivial and as a reasonable explanation is offered, this court is of the view that the authorities below ought not to have confiscated even the said 10% of the stock. 5. In the circumstances, the order impugned in this revision is set aside and the entire stock, which was seized by the Grain Purchasing Assistant on 09-05-2009, shall be released in favour of the petitioner. 6. Accordingly, Criminal Revision Case is allowed. ______________________________ GOPALA KRISHNA TAMADA,J 07th Octgober,2010 Tsy