The Karnataka High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against former in-house legal counsel of Pearson Education/ Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt Ltd, Prashant Kumar Joshi [Prashant Kumar Joshi v State of Karnataka].
By way of an order passed on September 11, Justice HP Sandesh quashed the criminal proceedings against Joshi in a case concerning legal metrology violations by Pearson Education.
The Court said that Joshi was not a nominated personnel of the company (under Section 49 of the Legal Metrology Act), responsible for the company's business and conduct.
The Court ruled that criminalising the former in-house counsel without the company being a party to the proceedings, would amount to an abuse of process of law.
"Nothing is stated in the complaint that this petitioner was in charge of the affairs of the company and he being shown as General Manager (Legal), the question of initiating the criminal prosecution against this petitioner is nothing but an abuse of process, which amounts to miscarriage of justice," the order said.
The case stemmed from a private complaint was filed against Joshi when he was working with Pearson Education as a General Manager (Legal).
In January 2012, the Inspector of Legal Metrology had found a pre-packed packaged Engineering Drawing textbook published by Pearson Education that did not mention the manufacturer's name and address, maximum retail price, net contents of the package, consumer care telephone number, and e-mail address.
The omission of the details were alleged violations under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 and the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011.
The Court relied on the legal principle of corporate liability provided under the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1938 and interpreted in Supreme Court precedents to hold the prosecution of Pearson's former counsel to be unsustainable without arraigning the company as a party.
Advocates Shrikara PK and Ganapati Hegde appeared for Pearson's former in-house counsel.
High Court Government Pleader M Divakar Madhu appeared for the State.
[Read Order]