Salekh Chand And Anr. vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh
Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.
Court: Supreme Court of India
Case Number: Not extracted
Decision Date: 22 April, 1959
Coram: S. Jafer Imam, J.L. Kapur
In this matter, the appellants Salekh Chand and Baboo Ram had been found guilty under Section 7 of the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act 1946, read in conjunction with Section 9 of the Uttar Pradesh Cement Control Order, 1953. The trial court imposed a sentence of six months’ rigorous imprisonment on each appellant and levied a fine of Rs 500, with a provision that failure to pay the fine would result in an additional six months of rigorous imprisonment. Both appellants filed an appeal against the conviction and the sentence. The appeal was dismissed by the Sessions Judge of Meerut, and a subsequent application for revision was filed in the Allahabad High Court. The High Court also dismissed the revision petition summarily, leaving the original conviction and sentence in force.
The factual record shows that in June 1954 the appellants sold a total of one hundred twenty-nine bags of cement to a purchaser named Khazan at a rate of Rs 9 14⁄– per bag. The sole question that required determination was whether the price of Rs 9 14⁄– per bag exceeded the price fixed as the controlled price of cement under the relevant statutory scheme, and consequently, whether the appellants’ conduct attracted liability under Section 7 of the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act 1946. To resolve this issue, the court needed to have legal evidence on the record establishing the controlled price of a bag of cement as fixed either under Section 6 or Section 7 of the Uttar Pradesh Cement Control Order, 1953. Neither the magistrate’s judgment nor the Sessions Judge’s decision cited any such evidence that would reveal the price fixed under the Order. The magistrate referred to the testimony of Ishwar Sahai, a Supply Inspector from Meerut, who stated that on 21-June-1954 the Rohtas brand of cement was being sold at Rs 5 8⁄– per bag and the A C C brand at Rs 5 3⁄3 per bag. The Sessions Judge similarly relied on the same testimony to indicate those prices. It should be noted that the cement involved in the transaction comprised the Rohtas and A C C brands. However, the lower courts did not record that Ishwar Sahai’s evidence pertained to any price fixation by the State Government under Section 6 or by the District Magistrate under Section 7 of the Order. Section 6 of the Order provides that “No Cement Company shall charge from any purchaser in Uttar Pradesh, a price for Cement or packings of cement higher than the price fixed by the State Government from time to time and notified in the Official Gazette.” Section 7 further stipulates that “No stockist or other person permitted … shall sell cement at a price exceeding the price fixed by the District Magistrate.” Upon examination, the evidence of Ishwar Sahai did not demonstrate that the quoted prices of Rs 5 8⁄– for Rohtas brand and Rs 5 3⁄3 for A C C brand were the prices formally fixed under either Section 6 or Section 7, nor was there any proof that such a price had been published in the Official Gazette. Consequently, the required legal proof of the controlled price of cement on the date of the appellants’ sale to Khazan was absent. In the absence of such proof, the court could not establish that the sale was made at a price exceeding the legally prescribed controlled price.
The Court first recalled the statutory provision that a stockist or any other person authorized under Clauses three and four was required to sell cement only at a price that did not exceed the price fixed by the District Magistrate. In examining the testimony of Ishwar Sahai, the Court found that his evidence did not show that the price of five rupees and eight annas per bag for Rohtas Brand Cement, or the price of five rupees three annas and three paisa per bag for A G C Brand Cement, had been fixed by the District Magistrate pursuant to Section seven of the Order. Likewise, the Court could locate no record that any controlled price for cement had been published in the Official Gazette under Section six of the same Order. From this examination, the Court concluded that there was an absence of legal evidence establishing what the controlled price of cement was on the date when the appellants sold cement to Khazan. Because such legal proof was lacking, the Court held that the evidence on record failed to demonstrate that the appellants’ sale had been made at a price exceeding the price that the law required to be fixed. Consequently, the Court could not accept the proposition that the sale was unlawful solely on the basis of an alleged excess over a controlled price that had not been proved.
The State, however, contended that none of the lower tribunals had addressed this specific issue and that no party had ever questioned the controlled price as narrated by Ishwar Sahai. While the Court acknowledged that observation, it stressed that a conviction for selling cement above a controlled price could be sustained only if the prosecution produced legal proof of the exact controlled price applicable at the time of the transaction. In the present case, the Court found that the evidence fell short of establishing any such price, and therefore it was impossible to uphold the conviction on the basis of an unproven price ceiling. The Court further observed that it was its duty to require clear legal evidence of the controlled price before it could affirm that the appellants had been correctly found guilty of the offense with which they were charged. As a result of the absence of any legal proof of the controlled price on the relevant date, the Court concluded that the appellants could not be convicted of the alleged offense. Accordingly, the Court allowed the appeal and set aside both the conviction and the sentence that had been imposed on the appellants.