Bengaluru: The Kalaburagi bench of Karnataka high court has quashed the proceedings against two dealers of pesticides and insecticides from Shahpur in Yadgir district.
In 2022, agriculture department officials registered cases against Devanand and Basanagouda Mali Patil for offences punishable under Sections 3(k), 13, 17, and 29 of Insecticides Act, 1968. The allegation was that insecticide samples seized from the petitioners’ retail shop/godown were of substandard quality, as indicated in the chemical analysis report.
Challenging the proceedings initiated against them, the petitioners argued that they were neither the manufacturers of the seized insecticide nor were they aware that the said insecticide was substandard; hence, they could not be prosecuted.
After perusing the materials on record, Justice S Vishwajith Shetty noted that if the analogy that every person who has stocked substandard insecticide is liable to be prosecuted for the alleged offence is accepted, then even the purchasers of the insecticide from the retail shop/showroom may have to face prosecution in a given case, and therefore, such an analogy cannot be accepted.
“For the purpose of prosecuting a person for the offences punishable under the Act, the prosecution is primarily required to show that the accused was either aware of the quality and contents of the product or that he had control as regards the quality and contents of the product manufactured by the company,” the judge further added.
“In the case on hand, there is no such allegation that the petitioners stocked or displayed the product of the company knowing very well that the said product was of substandard quality,” the judge said, adding that the petitioners cannot be held vicariously liable and penalised for a product in whose manufacture they were not involved.