JUDGMENT
A.B.N. Sinha, J.
1. The petitioner has been convicted under Section 13(1) read with Section 5 and Section 8(1) of the Rice Milling Industry (Regulation) Act, 1958 (Act No. 21 of 1958) and has been sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 500/- in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three months. On the 1st of March, 1966, The Block Development Officer, Sultanganj (P. W. 3), visited the premises alleged to belong to the petitioner. There, he found a rice-Mill being worked with power. He further found 56 kilogrammes of husk mixed with rice and two bags of paddy husk. The prosecution case against the petitioner is that he had expanded his flour mill into a rice mill for the purpose of crushing paddy through huller system without obtaining a permit under Section 5 of the Rice Milling Industry (Regulation) Act, 1958, and thus he had contravened Section 8(1) and was punishable under Section 13(1) of the said Act.
2. The defence of the petitioner was that he had no rice mill at all. According to his case, the mill, which was found working by P. W. 3, belonged to his step-brother, who was separate from him…. Two witnesses including the stepbrother were examined in support of the defence.
3. The court below have accepted the prosecution case and have convicted and sentenced the petitioner as mentioned above.
4. In support of this application, it has been urged that the court below has failed to consider the evidence of the witnesses examined for the defence, and thus on that account the Judgment of the court below was vitiated in law and was fit to be set aside. I find that though the learned Sessions Judge, who disposed of the petitioner’s appeal, has stated at this commencement of paragraph 8 of the judgment that he had gone through the evidence of the witnesses for the prosecution as well as for the defence, it does not appear that he has discussed the evidence of the witnesses examined for the defence anywhere in the judgment. This failure on the part of the learned session Judge would have justified a remand of this case, but that, in my opinion, would cause unnecessary harassment to the petitioner. In the circumstances, I have myself gone through the evidence of D. Ws., 1 and 2, with a view to find out whether their evidence was acceptable, and, if so, whether the petitioner was entitled to acquittal. In my opinion the petitioner’s case that the rice-mill in question did not belong to him at all finds support from the evidence of both D. W.’S, 1 and 2. Learned Counsel, appearing for the state, was unable to point out any thing in their cross-examination which may be said to discredit their testimony D. W. 2, Naresh Prasad Mandal is the stepbrother of the petitioner, and he has claimed that he was living separate from the petitioner and that their business was also separate. He has candidly offered to produce the receipt which he had obtained from the person who had sold the rice mill to him at Calcutta. I have no doubt that if the learned sessions judge had considered the evidence of the defence witnesses he would have come to the conclusion that the defence case that the rice mill did not belong to the petitioner was made out.
5. In the circumstances discussed above, it must be held that the charge against the petitioner fails. In the result the order of conviction and sentence passed against the petitioner is set aside and this application is allowed and the rule is made absolute.