Brief Facts
- The petitioner is a private limited company and is engaged in the business of manufacturing, marketing, sale, export and distribution of edible vegetable oils, edible vegetable fats etc. The Officers from the Consumer Affairs Department (Legal Metrology Technical Cell) State Level Central Vigilance Squad, Government of Rajasthan, searched and inspected the manufacturing facilities at Dudu under Section 15 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, seizing 125 pouches of mustard oil/ kachi Ghani.
- The respondent authority concluded that the petitioner has failed the test concerning the net content of oil that was shown on the wrapper after randomly verifying four packets. However, the petitioner passed in the requirement of the mandatory declaration to be made on the packages according to the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 and the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011. Each pouch marked a statement that it contained 1 litre at 500 centigrade (900 gram). The respondent authority was of the view that 50 centigrade was unreasonably high, hence they adopted normal room temperature for ascertaining the net quantity content and concluded that net content was approximately 976.79 ml. As such, lesser quantity was packed than displayed, with deliberate intention to cheat the consumer.
- Hence, the petitioner contested that principles of natural justice were not complied with, and no opportunity was granted to the petitioner to provide material in support of their case and the seizure of goods was not legal.
Issues
- Whether the Criminal Writ Petition was maintainable in light of the alternative remedy, by way of appeal, available under the Legal Meteorology Act?
- Whether the seizure was valid and justifiable, or the goods were liable to be released?
- Whether failure to provide opportunity to the petitioner company to respond to the queries to the respondent-department would quash the entire proceedings?
Held
- The court found the Writ Petition to be maintainable and further held that the petitioner has not violated any restriction clause against right to carry on any trade or business, hence right of the petitioner under Article 19 of the Constitution of India requires to be protected.
- Furthermore, it is evident that the respondents have violated the mandate of Section 15 of the Act in initiating the search and seizure as they had no material to have reason to believe that search and seizure is necessary. The respondents did not allow opportunity of hearing to the petitioner to explain the unilateral decision of the respondents. The respondents did not adopt the statutory provisions to ensure presence of independent witness of local inhabitant and in absence thereof to ensure presence of other independent witnesses nor have assigned any reason that their presence was not feasible.
- The respondents have arbitrarily adopted 27.8° Centigrade as a scale for concluding that the edible oils were in lesser quantity than displayed. They have not disputed that at 500° C, the quantity of oil was the same which was displayed on the wrapper. The Act and Rules do not specify that what should be the degree of temperature at which the edible oils should be packaged Therefore, action of the respondents is arbitrary and against the mandates of law, as such violative of Article 19 of the Constitution. The advisory of the Government dated 20.1.2023 above goes to show that just to clarify the aforesaid anomalies in the Act and Rules, it was decided that henceforth, no temperature would be mentioned, therefore, it cannot be argued that the action of the petitioner in mentioning the temperature was against the mandate of law and in violation of the statutory provisions.
- The respondent authorities have not only disregarded the mandate of law in effecting search and seizure rather, did not follow the natural justice in not giving any opportunity to the petitioner to explain why 500 C was mentioned on the wrapper as well as to have chance to meet the arbitrary scales of the respondent authorities i.e. 27.80 C, adopted for ascertaining net weight and volume of the oil. Further, the Act and the Rules have not been followed to protect the seized oil from being perished. As such, the petitioner has no efficacious remedy before the appellate authority for redressal of his grievance.
- In the aforesaid circumstance, it would be in the interest of justice to quash the entire search and seizure proceedings as it suffers from manifest error of law and non-compliance of the mandates of law.
Relevant Para No.
13, 14, 15