The Supreme Court on Monday, during the hearing of a case of adulteration of food items, refused to grant anticipatory bail to the accused of adulteration, asking whether they were ready to feed their family the adulterated food items which are being fed to the customers.

A bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and MR Shah said this during the hearing of the anticipatory bail plea of ​​two accused Pravar Goel and Vineet Goel. When the counsel for the accused said that due to the facts of the case their clients should be granted bail.

On this, the bench asked the lawyer, will you or your family eat this food? If your answer is yes, then we will consider granting bail. On the delay in replying to the question by the council, the bench said, “Why should it be difficult for a lawyer seeking bail in these cases to answer such a basic question.” Why should it not be understood to mean that let the rest die? Why should we bother?

Expressing concern over the cases of food adulteration, the Supreme Court said, our country is very liberal in the matter of health-related crimes. While saying this, the bench said that we are not in favor of granting bail to both the accused. Seeing the stand of the court, the lawyer withdrew the petition.

The counsel for the accused had given this argument earlier
The counsel appearing for the accused sought anticipatory bail from the court on the ground that most of the charges relating to food adulteration were bailable, so there was no justification for the detention of his clients. “Only the allegation of cheating is non-bailable, but no such offense has been made out as per the FIR,” the lawyer said.

This was the case: the accused were selling polished wheat
In the case registered last year in Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh, the two are accused of selling wheat by using inedible gold paint and polishing them. Several thousand kg of polished wheat sacks were confiscated from their premises after the raids in December 2020. Both were booked under the Indian Penal Code for adulteration of food items and selling harmful food items.

Adulteration of food items crime against society
Last week, in a case of adulteration of food items, the Supreme Court had refused to grant anticipatory bail to the accused saying that adulteration in food items is a crime against the entire society.

The Supreme Court had told the accused that by selling fake food items, you are trying to kill not only an individual but the entire society. Such crimes cannot be taken lightly. It was a case of adulterated ghee. The argument of the accused was that the ghee was not for eating, but it was for lighting lamps in temples.