A 66-year-old businessman has been sentenced to 18 months jail for selling adulterated pulse by a Delhi court which observed that adulteration in food articles was a "menace to public health".
"The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act has been enacted with aim of eradicating that anti-social evil and for ensuring purity in the article of food. The aim of act is to protect the citizens from those who in the guise of respectable trades jeopardise the health and well being of innocent customers," Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Rao said.
"The adulterators are serious risk to the society," the court said while handing down the jail term to Satya Prakash Jain, a resident of Delhi.
The court found Jain, proprietor of M/s Gian Chand Satya Prakash Jain, guilty of offence under the provisions of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA). The court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on the convict.
The court, however, suspended the sentence awarded to Jain for 30 days and granted him bail after he moved an application seeking suspension of sentence.
According to complainant, Delhi government's Department of PFA, on August 8, 2004, officials from the department found that accused was conducting business of food articles, meant for human consumption, which were adulterated.
The officials sent the seized samples for analysis and it was opined that the food article was "coloured with synthetic colour matter".
During the pendency of the case, the accused moved an application to get second opinion of the seized sample from Director of Central Food Laboratory (CFL).
In the report, the CFL Director opined that "sample does not conform to the standards of split pulse (Dal) Arhar as per PFA Rules 1955".
