Court No. - 21
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 3740 of 2019 Petitioner :- Ram Swarup Sahu Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Shashi Ranjan Srivastava,Reetesh Kumar Srivastava Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Pradeep Kumar Singh Baghel,J. Hon'ble Pankaj Bhatia,J.
The petitioner has preferred this writ petition for issuance of a writ of certiorari quashing the order dated 6.12.2018 passed by respondent no.3 whereby on the basis of a report of the Regional Public Analyst Laboratory, Gorakhpur, the samples of mustard oil taken from the petitioner's shop have been declared to be substandard. The petitioner alleges that he is a shopkeeper and runs a small shop in village & post office Jakhlaun, Block Birdha, Tehsil Sadar District Lalitpur. On 18.8.2018, a team of Food Safety and Drug Administration came to the shop of the petitioner and took samples of mustard oil, kept for sale at the petitioner's shop in four bottles and sent the same for testing at Regional Public Analyst Laboratory, Gorakhpur. The said laboratory gave its opinion vide report dated 7.9.2018 stating that the samples were found to be substandard. In terms of the said report, the respondent no.3 has passed the order dated 6.12.2018 informing that the samples drawn from the petitioner's shop have been declared to be substandard. The allegations of the petitioner are that the procedure for drawing the samples as laid down under the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006 and the rules were not followed by the respondents while drawing the sample.
Learned standing counsel Smt. Archana Singh has argued that again the said order, an appeal is provided under Section 46(4) of the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006.
Section 46(4) of the Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006 is quoted herein below:-
"An appeal against the report of Food Analyst shall lie before the Designated Officer who shall, if he so decides, refer the matter to the referral food laboratory as notified by the Food Authority for opinion."
We have heard learned counsel for the petitioner, learned standing counsel for the State and perused the record.
We are of the view that the petitioner has an efficacious alternative remedy under the aforesaid Section, the petitioner can raise all the issues before the appellate authority.
In view of the above, we do not entertain this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India on the ground of alternative remedy. Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed, leaving it open to the petitioner to file an appeal before the appropriate forum. If the appeal is filed within two weeks, the same shall be considered by the concerned authority on merit and shall not be rejected on the ground of limitation.
It is made clear that we have not adjudicated the issue on merit hence, dismissal of the writ petition shall not cause any prejudice to the interest of the petitioner.
Order Date :- 25.2.2019 Hasnain