Retrospective penal liability and supplementary complaints cannot add accused after cognizance or punish pre-enactment conduct.

A supplementary complaint cannot be used to add new accused after cognizance has been taken and process issued; the proper route is Section 319 CrPC at the appropriate stage, so the additional accused could not be brought on record on that basis. A later-enacted penal provision creating fresh liability for company officers cannot be applied retrospectively to alleged conduct predating its commencement; applying Section 9AA of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, to acts from 1975 to 1983 would offend Article 20(1) of the Constitution. The criminal proceedings were therefore unsustainable on both grounds.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether additional accused could be brought on record in a complaint case by filing a supplementary complaint after cognizance had already been taken; (ii) Whether Section 9AA of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, inserted in 1985, could be applied retrospectively to alleged conduct during 1975 to 1983 so as to fasten criminal liability on company officers.

Issue (i): Whether additional accused could be brought on record in a complaint case by filing a supplementary complaint after cognizance had already been taken.

Analysis: Once cognizance had been taken on the original complaint and process had been issued, the procedure could not be expanded by filing a supplementary complaint to array new accused. In a complaint case, the proper course for bringing in additional accused at a later stage was invocation of Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, at the appropriate stage. Entertaining a supplementary complaint for that purpose was not sanctioned by the Code.

Conclusion: The supplementary complaint procedure was impermissible in law and the addition of accused on that basis could not stand.

Issue (ii): Whether Section 9AA of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, inserted in 1985, could be applied retrospectively to alleged conduct during 1975 to 1983 so as to fasten criminal liability on company officers.

Analysis: Section 9AA was treated as a substantive penal provision creating liability for the first time for persons in charge of, or responsible for, the company's business and for directors or officers whose consent, connivance, or neglect led to the offence. A provision of that nature, unless made retrospective, cannot be applied to conduct occurring before it was brought into force. Applying it to acts allegedly committed between 1-10-1975 and 28-2-1983 would amount to imposing criminal liability for a period when the provision was not on the statute book and would offend Article 20(1) of the Constitution of India.

Conclusion: Section 9AA could not be invoked retrospectively against the petitioners for the alleged pre-1985 conduct.

Final Conclusion: The criminal proceedings against the petitioners were unsustainable both because the supplementary complaint procedure was invalid and because the penal provision relied on could not be applied to prior conduct.

Ratio Decidendi: A later-enacted penal provision that creates fresh criminal liability for company officers cannot be applied retrospectively, and additional accused in a complaint case cannot be introduced by a supplementary complaint after cognizance, but only in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code.

---