Calcutta HC Quashes FSS Act Prosecution Against Company Manager, Holds Absence of Corporate Accused Is Fatal
Justice Uday Kumar quashed criminal proceedings against a dairy unit manager under the Food Safety and Standards Act, holding the omission of the manufacturing company as accused was an incurable jurisdictional defect.
Justice Uday Kumar, sitting singly at the High Court at Calcutta, allowed a criminal revision filed by Partha Sarathi Tripathy, the Manager of M/s. Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Private Limited, and quashed the cognizance order dated 15 December 2021 passed by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hooghly at Chinsurah, along with the entire proceedings in C.R. Case No. 384 of 2021 under Section 59 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. The Court held that prosecuting a corporate officer under Section 66 of the FSS Act while leaving the corporate entity itself entirely out of the complaint is a fatal, incurable jurisdictional defect. Compounding this, a fifty-nine-day delay in delivering the Food Analyst's report — nearly four times the fourteen-day statutory limit — and non-compliance with the procedural workflow under Sections 37 and 42 of the Act gave three independent grounds, each sufficient to render the prosecution unsupportable.
The Inspection, the Complaint, and the Missing Corporate Accused
On 11 March 2021, the Food Safety Officer, Eastern Railway, conducted an inspection of a retail food stall called “La-Fasta,” situated between Platforms 3 and 4 of Bandel Railway Station, Hooghly. The officer purchased eight Tetra Packs of Britannia Winkin Cow Thick Lassi, each measuring 200 ml, manufactured by M/s. Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Private Limited, for a total cash consideration of Rs. 160.
One part of the sample was dispatched on 12 March 2021 to the West Bengal Public Health Laboratory (Food & Water Department). The analysis report was, however, generated only on 20 May 2021 — fifty-nine days after receipt. The Food Analyst attributed the delay to COVID-19 pandemic backlogs and staff shortages. The report declared the product “unsafe food” under Section 3(1)(zz) of the FSS Act, citing the presence of Escherichia coli and elevated coliform counts.
The Food Safety Officer then filed a complaint giving rise to C.R. Case No. 384 of 2021, arraigning the stall handler, stall owner, marketer, and the petitioner in his individual capacity as Manager of the manufacturing unit. M/s. Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Private Limited, the actual manufacturing company, was not made an accused. On 15 December 2021, the Chief Judicial Magistrate took cognizance of the offence under Section 59 of the FSS Act and directed issuance of process against the petitioner.
Aggrieved, Tripathy filed CRR 4350 of 2022 before the High Court at Calcutta under Section 401 read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, seeking quashing of the cognizance order and the proceedings.
Three Legal Questions Before the Court
Justice Uday Kumar identified three discrete legal questions for determination.
First, whether a prosecution under Section 59 read with Section 66 of the FSS Act can be maintained against a corporate manager when the manufacturing company itself has not been arraigned as an accused.
Second, whether the fifty-nine-day delay in delivering the Food Analyst's report, in contravention of the mandatory fourteen-day period under Section 46(3) of the FSS Act, destroys the evidentiary reliability of the analysis of a short-shelf-life perishable dairy product and infringes the accused's statutory right of re-analysis under Section 46(4).
Third, whether non-compliance with the jurisdictional authorisation under Section 37 and the structured procedural workflow under Section 42 of the Act rendered the complaint and cognizance order unsustainable.
Petitioner's Arguments
Mr. Debdatta Saha, appearing for the petitioner, argued that Section 66 of the FSS Act codifies vicarious liability, which cannot be fastened upon a corporate officer unless the company is itself arraigned as a principal offender. He relied on the three-Judge Bench decision in Aneeta Hada v. Godfather Travels and Tours Private Limited [(2012) 5 SCC 661] and Sharad Kumar Sanghi v. Sangita Rane [(2015) 12 SCC 781], and the Madras High Court decision in A.T. Kannan v. State (2021 SCC OnLine Mad 14094), to submit that the omission of the company rendered the prosecution void ab initio.
On the delay question, Mr. Saha argued that for a perishable fermented dairy product like lassi, a fifty-nine-day gap between sample receipt and report generation severely prejudiced the petitioner's right to seek re-analysis through a Referral Laboratory under Section 46(4). He relied on Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Ghisa Ram (AIR 1967 SC 970) and G. Irudhayanathan v. B. Ramakrishnan (2020 SCC OnLine Mad 12748).
On the procedural competence issue, he challenged the foundational authorisation of the Food Safety Officer under Section 37 and the mechanical invocation of the procedure under Section 42, relying on Sailen Ganguly v. State of West Bengal & Anr. (2016 SCC OnLine Cal 153).
Opposite Party's Defence
Mr. Pramod Kumar Drolia, appearing for Opposite Party No. 2 (the Food Safety Officer), contended that the petitioner was directly in charge of the manufacturing unit and thus fulfilled the requirements of Section 66(2) of the FSS Act. He argued that arraigning the petitioner in his official designation as Manager satisfied the initial procedural threshold, and that any disputes about direct oversight or transit-temperature variations were questions of fact to be tested at trial.
On the delay, Mr. Drolia relied on the official communication dated 7 April 2021 from the Food Analyst explaining that the scientific evaluation was completed in time and that only the administrative dispatch of the report was delayed due to pandemic conditions. He maintained that the detection of pathogenic organisms was determinative of the product being unsafe.
How the Court Reasoned on Each Ground
On the absence of the corporate accused: Justice Uday Kumar held that Section 66(1) of the FSS Act makes the commission of an offence by the company the foundational sine qua non for vicarious liability against its officers. Vicarious criminal liability is a statutory legal fiction; it cannot operate independently of a principal offender formally brought into the lis. The Court applied the binding principle from Aneeta Hada, where the Supreme Court held that “arraigning of a company as an accused is imperative” before individual officers can be brought into the dragnet on vicarious liability. The same principle was reaffirmed in Sharad Kumar Sanghi.
The prosecution's argument that citing the petitioner as “The Manager, M/s. Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Pvt. Ltd.” was sufficient was rejected outright. The Court held that arraigning an officer by official designation does not equate, in law, to impleading the corporate entity as a distinct juristic person. A bare reading of the cause title of C.R. Case No. 384 of 2021 confirmed the total omission of M/s. Schreiber Dynamix Dairies Private Limited from the array of accused. This omission was held to be a fatal and incurable jurisdictional defect.
On the fifty-nine-day delay in the analysis report: Section 46(3) of the FSS Act mandates delivery of the Food Analyst's report within fourteen days of receipt of the sample. The sample was received on 12 March 2021 but the report was generated only on 20 May 2021 — a gap of fifty-nine days. The Court acknowledged the pandemic explanation but held that it had to be weighed against the strict statutory timelines designed to protect the rights of accused persons, particularly where perishable commodities are involved.
Fermented dairy products like lassi are subject to rapid natural biological degradation and microbial evolution. The Court found that the fifty-nine-day hiatus created a substantial grey area regarding sample integrity. Whether the sample remained free from environmental or natural microbial self-generation during this extended period, given the reported presence of E. coli and coliform counts, raised serious concerns about prejudice to the petitioner's statutory right of re-analysis under Section 46(4). The Court relied on Ghisa Ram and G. Irudhayanathan in this regard.
On procedural non-compliance under Sections 37 and 42: The Court held that Section 42 prescribes a structured, time-bound sequence — receipt of the analysis report, independent application of mind by the Designated Officer, sanction by the competent authority, and then filing of a complaint. The fifty-nine-day delay in analysis had fractured the Section 42(1) workflow, and the record demonstrated a mechanical transmission of files rather than a reasoned, independent application of mind. Compliance with this procedural sequence was held to be a mandatory prerequisite for taking valid cognizance.
Additionally, the Court noted a significant jurisdictional gap regarding the formal authorisation of the Food Safety Officer, Eastern Railway, to exercise statutory powers over a retail stall within a railway station without seamless integration into the local administrative jurisdiction of Hooghly district under Section 37. Taken together, the procedural lapses vitiated the prosecution and rendered the cognizance order legally unsupportable, following Sailen Ganguly.
The Court concluded that the prosecution suffered from incurable jurisdictional illegality, serious procedural non-compliance, and fatal prejudice caused by the statutory delay, and that permitting it to continue would amount to an abuse of the process of Court.
Order
Justice Uday Kumar allowed CRR 4350 of 2022. The criminal proceeding in C.R. Case No. 384 of 2021 pending before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hooghly at Chinsurah, together with the impugned cognizance order dated 15 December 2021, was quashed and set aside in so far as the petitioner Partha Sarathi Tripathy is concerned.
The Court expressly clarified that the order does not preclude or affect the continuation of proceedings against the remaining co-accused persons in accordance with law. All connected applications were disposed of, interim orders were vacated, and there was no order as to costs. The Trial Court Record was directed to be sent down to the Trial Court forthwith.