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Avtar Singh & Anr. vs. State of Punjab

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 280Decided 23 Mar 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 1711 of 2011
Abhay S. Oka · Rajesh Bindal

Background

The appellants were convicted under Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 for allegedly selling LPG gas cylinders in the black market at inflated prices, after a Sub-Inspector of Police acted on a tip-off, seized their truck, and arrested them. The independent witnesses and alleged buyers did not support the prosecution's case at trial, and only two police witnesses testified in its favour; nonetheless, both the Trial Court and the Punjab & Haryana High Court convicted the appellants for unauthorized possession of the cylinders and sentenced them to six months' imprisonment.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court focused on a legal point neither lower court had considered: under the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order, 1988, only specifically designated officers: an Inspector-level officer of the Food and Civil Supplies Department, a Sales Officer of an Oil Company, or a person specifically authorised and notified by the government: could conduct search and seizure under the Order. A Sub-Inspector of Police was not among the authorised categories, and nothing on record showed he had been specially authorised. Applying the settled principle that when a law prescribes a specific manner of exercising a power, it must be exercised only in that manner and no other, the Court held the seizure and the entire prosecution built on it were unauthorized and could not stand. Decision Breakdown (continued: outcome): The appeal was allowed, the conviction and sentence were set aside, and the bail bonds were discharged.

Lesson Learnt

A criminal prosecution can fail entirely if the official who conducted the search or seizure was not among the specific categories of persons legally authorised to do so under the governing law: procedural authority matters as much as the underlying facts.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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