A, a young lady of 20 years was selling milk after mixing it with water. On being put to trial, A was convicted by the Magistrate for the offence u/s 272 I.P.C. On appeal the conviction was confirmed by the sessions judge. Whether the judgment delivered by both the courts is correct?

The Legislative Scheme: Two Separate Offences

Chapter XV of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, now mirrored in Chapter XV of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, deals with offences affecting the public health, safety, convenience, decency and morals. Within this chapter, two closely related but distinct sections address the evil of adulterated food and drink.

Section 272 IPC (now Section 274 BNS) — Adulteration of food or drink intended for sale — reads:

"Whoever adulterates any article of food or drink, so as to make such article noxious as food or drink, intending to sell such article as food or drink, or knowing it to be likely that the same will be sold as food or drink, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees, or with both."

Section 273 IPC (now Section 275 BNS) — Sale of noxious food or drink — reads:

"Whoever sells, or offers or exposes for sale, as food or drink, any article which has been rendered or has become noxious, or is in a state unfit for food or drink, knowing or having reason to believe that the same is noxious as food or drink, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees, or with both."

Both provisions are targeted at different stages of the same evil: the former at the act of adulteration with the intent to sell, and the latter at the act of selling what is already noxious. Both provisions are designed to protect the public from the consumption of unwholesome food. But they share a common and absolutely indispensable requirement — one that determines whether A is guilty under either of them.

The Pivotal Ingredient: Noxiousness

The word that stands between conviction and acquittal in A's case is "noxious." Both Section 272 IPC / Section 274 BNS and Section 273 IPC / Section 275 BNS require, as an essential ingredient, that the article of food or drink must have been made noxious — that is, harmful or injurious to health, or unwholesome as food or drink.

The sources state the legal position with the precision of settled law: "noxious as food or drink means harmful or injurious to health, or unwholesome as food; it does not mean repugnant to one's feelings." This definition was settled in Emperor v. Ram Dayal (1924 ILR 46 All. 94), which remains good law under the BNS as well.

More to the point, the sources state in terms that brook no ambiguity: "Milk mixed with water will not become noxious." The authority cited for this proposition is the Lahore High Court's judgment in Dhawa (AIR 1926 Lah 49). The court held that diluting milk with water, while undoubtedly dishonest and commercially fraudulent, does not render the milk noxious — it does not make it harmful or injurious to health. Water, in ordinary circumstances, is a harmless substance. Mixing it with milk simply diminishes the quality and quantity of the milk. The adulterated product remains safe to drink. It does not sicken, it does not poison, and it does not endanger the health of the consumer.

Similarly, the source notes that a person who mixes pig's fat with ghee, intending to sell the mixture as pure ghee, cannot be convicted under Section 272 IPC — because the mixture, while commercially fraudulent, does not make the ghee noxious. The court in that case similarly drew the critical distinction between fraud and noxiousness. The law punishes the specific evil of noxious food; it does not create a general criminal offence of food fraud through these sections.

Why the Conviction Under Section 272 IPC is Wrong

Section 272 IPC (Section 274 BNS) requires the prosecution to prove four ingredients:

1. The article in question is food or drink.

2. It was adulterated by the accused.

3. Such adulteration rendered it noxious as food or drink.

4. When the accused adulterated it, he intended to sell such adulterated article as food or drink.

In A's case, ingredients 1, 2, and 4 are clearly satisfied. Milk is food and drink. A mixed it with water — that is adulteration. And she was selling it — so the intent to sell is undeniable. But ingredient 3 — the noxiousness of the adulterated product — is fatally absent. Milk diluted with water is not noxious. It is inferior, watered-down, fraudulently presented, but it is not harmful or injurious to health. The prosecution has failed to establish the essential ingredient of noxiousness, and therefore the conviction under Section 272 IPC is unsustainable.

The Magistrate erred in convicting A without appreciating that the mere act of mixing water with milk does not satisfy the noxiousness requirement. The Sessions Judge compounded the error by confirming that conviction without correcting this fundamental legal defect. Both judgments deserve to be set aside.

The Correct Legal Position: Which Provision Would Apply?

If A's conduct does not attract Section 272 IPC / Section 274 BNS, one must ask: is she criminally liable at all, and if so, under what provision?

The answer requires understanding what Section 272 IPC / Section 274 BNS is designed to punish, and what it leaves to other laws. The section punishes adulteration that makes food or drink noxious. It is a public health protection — not a commercial fraud provision. Where adulteration is carried out without rendering the food noxious, the conduct may attract civil liability, regulatory action, or prosecution under special statutes, but it does not attract Section 272 IPC in the absence of noxiousness.

The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 — a comprehensive legislation that came into force on 1 June 1955 — was specifically enacted to combat the large-scale menace of adulteration of food and drink and to ensure the sale of wholesome food to the people. Under that statute, adulterating milk by adding water — even if harmless — is a punishable offence, because the Act addresses quality and purity standards regardless of whether the adulterant is harmful. A ought therefore to have been prosecuted under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, and not under Section 272 IPC, if the state wished to address the commercial fraud of selling diluted milk. The IPC provision requires noxiousness — the special statute does not. The legislature, in its wisdom, created separate frameworks for the two distinct evils.

The Distinction Between Section 272 and Section 273 IPC Clarified

A student must understand why neither Section 272 nor Section 273 IPC can apply to A's case. Under Section 273 IPC / Section 275 BNS, the offence is the sale of food or drink that is noxious or in a state unfit for food or drink, with the knowledge that it is so. Here again, the predicate requirement of noxiousness must be satisfied. Since milk diluted with water is neither noxious nor unfit for consumption, Section 273 IPC / Section 275 BNS is equally inapplicable. Whether one looks at the adulteration stage (Section 272/274) or the sale stage (Section 273/275), the absence of noxiousness is fatal to prosecution under either provision. The sources confirm: "Milk mixed with water will not become noxious" — and with that single, settled proposition, the edifice of A's conviction collapses.

Age of the Accused: A Brief Note

The question draws attention to A being a young lady of twenty years. Under the existing law, there is no special dispensation in criminal liability based on age once a person has crossed eighteen years. A is a major and fully capable of criminal responsibility. Her age is, at best, a factor that a court might consider in sentencing — not in determining guilt. The issue of guilt must be resolved, as shown above, purely on the absence of the essential ingredient of noxiousness.

Conclusion on the Correctness of the Judgments

Both the Magistrate and the Sessions Court fell into the same error: they treated the act of mixing water with milk as constituting adulteration noxious in nature within the meaning of Section 272 IPC. The law, as settled by the Lahore High Court in Dhawa (AIR 1926 Lah 49) and endorsed by the authoritative commentary on the section, is to the contrary. Milk mixed with water does not become noxious. The judgments of both courts are, therefore, incorrect. A's conviction under Section 272 IPC deserves to be set aside in any revision or further appeal. The appropriate remedy for the state, if it wishes to prosecute A for selling adulterated milk, lies under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, and not under the Indian Penal Code.

The principle at the heart of this problem is a reminder of how precisely the criminal law must be applied. Dishonesty and deception in commerce are undeniable wrongs — but not every wrong is a crime under every section. The law insists on the satisfaction of each ingredient with exactitude, and where any one essential ingredient fails, the entire prosecution must fail with it.