Khaitan & Co. Successfully Represents Alembic

Khaitan & Co successfully represented Alembic Limited, a pharmaceutical company known for its production and marketing of high-quality pharmaceutical products, in a criminal proceeding under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. Dr. S. Muralidhar, Senior Advocate, appeared alongside the Khaitan & Co team which included Ajay Bhargava (Partner), Sahil Narang (Partner), Dhritiman Roy (Principal Associate), Madhavam Sharma (Principal Associate) and Sania Abbasi (Associate).

In 2005, Alembic had launched its promising “Zero Calorie Sweetener”, a product that was seized for analysis by the Food Inspector. Upon analysis, charges were framed against Alembic by the State of Gujarat for misbranding it as a “Zero Calorie Sweetener”. In the trial court, Alembic and its representatives had successfully defended against the charge and had been exonerated. However, upon appeal by the State in the High Court of Gujarat, a new allegation was raised against Alembic for non-compliance with the permissible limit of sucralose in the “Zero Calorie Sweetener”, adulteration and for wrongly labelling and misbranding the subject product as a table top sweetener under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955. The High Court had directed that the matter be remanded for retrial de novo. Pertinently, offences of adulteration and misbranding under the Act attract a term of not less than 6 months and a fine of not less than one thousand rupees.

The bench comprising Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, JJ., was taken through the evidence on record and the obvious fallacies in the reasoning adopted by the High Court of Gujarat. The bench held that in a criminal trial, the burden of proof can never be shifted on the accused, and it was for the State to show if a complaint had been raised against the “Zero Calorie Sweetener” for adulteration specifically, and discharge the burden of proving that the product was, in fact, wrongly labelled as a table top sweetener. The bench also noted that technicalities of the law had to be strictly followed in order to give the benefit to the accused in all criminal proceedings.

The Supreme Court ultimately held that even if it were to take the case of the State at its highest, no purpose would be served in remanding the matter for a retrial, given the fatal flaws in the complaint itself. Since the complaint failed to show specific averments on “Zero Calorie Sweetener” being an adulterated table top sweetener, the charge could not be amended even in a retrial.