In Brief
A director of Bharti Retail Limited was prosecuted for misbranding biscuit packets sold at an Easy Day store. The offence involved violation of labelling standards under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act (PFA), prosecuted after the PFA was formally repealed in 2011. The Supreme Court held that because the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA) was already in force when the misbranding occurred, and prescribes only monetary penalties (unlike PFA's imprisonment provisions), Section 89 of FSSA gives it overriding effect. Therefore, the appellant cannot be prosecuted under the PFA; only FSSA penalty provisions apply. The court allowed the appeal and quashed the criminal proceedings.
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