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Shailyamanyu Singh v. The State of Maharashtra

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 995Decided 22 Jul 2025
Crl.A. No.-003104-003104 - 2025 (arising out of SLP(Crl.) No. 5618 of 2023)
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

The appellant was a Non-Executive Director of Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Healthcare Ltd. (P&G), which distributed a pain-relief gel through a clearing agent. A Drug Inspector found an expired batch of the drug illegally stored at a dealer's premises and traced it back to P&G, which had also allegedly supplied the drug to another dealer lacking a valid licence. A criminal complaint was filed under the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 naming the appellant along with the company and others, and the Bombay High Court refused to quash the summoning order against him.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined Section 34 of the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, which allows prosecution of a director only if there is a prima facie averment that the offence was committed with that director's "consent, connivance, or attributable neglect," or that he was in charge of and responsible for the company's day-to-day business. The Court found the complaint contained only a bald, omnibus allegation against the appellant and the company together, with no specific averment about his role, no inquiry by the Drug Inspector into which director was responsible for daily affairs, and no evidence he was anything other than a Non-Executive Director. Relying on its own precedent (Dayle De'Souza v. Union of India), the Court held that merely being a director does not create a presumption of vicarious criminal liability: the complainant must plead something more.

Lesson Learnt

Simply holding the title of "Director" of a company does not automatically expose a person to criminal prosecution for the company's regulatory violations; the prosecution must specifically show that person was actually responsible for the day-to-day conduct of the business or personally consented to or connived in the offence.

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

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