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Inspection of manufacture or production of commodities.
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8.—(1) The Minister may by order provide that every application for appointment as official contractor for the supply of a commodity specified in such order shall be accompanied by an undertaking by the applicant that, in the event of his appointment and of his manufacturing or producing such commodity at any time during the period of his appointment, he will permit such manufacture or production to be inspected by the Minister.
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(2) Whenever an order has been made under this section in relation to applications for appointment as an official contractor, no application for appointment as such official contractor shall, so long as such order remains in force, be considered unless it is accompanied by the undertaking mentioned in such order.
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(3) The Minister may by order at any time revoke an order made under the first sub-section of this section.
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(4) Whenever an official contractor has entered into an undertaking to permit the manufacture or production by him of a commodity to be supplied by him as such official contractor to be inspected by the Minister, the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:—
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(a) an officer of the Minister may enter any premises in which the manufacture or production of such commodity, or any part or process of such manufacture or production, is carried on by such official contractor, and may so enter such premises at any time when such manufacture or production or such part or process thereof is being carried on, and may on such entry inspect and examine such premises and the plant and equipment thereof, and inspect and observe all or any of the processes of such manufacture or production carried on in such premises, and examine and observe the means employed and method used in testing such commodity in such premises;
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(b) an officer of the Minister making an inspection under the next preceding paragraph of this sub-section in any premises may take and carry away without payment samples of the commodity manufactured or produced wholly or partly in such premises and of any component or constituent of such commodity, and may take such samples at any stage in such manufacture or production;
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(c) an officer of the Minister who has entered any premises under this section may there inspect and examine all such books and records the examination and inspection of which appear to such officer to be reasonably necessary for the proper inspection of the manufacture or production of the commodity manufactured or produced wholly or partly in such premises, and may there make and take away copies of the whole or any part of any such documents;
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(d) such official contractor shall afford to any officer of the Minister entering under this section any premises of such contractor all reasonable facilities for the doing of all or any of the things which such officer is empowered by this sub-section to do in such premises, and in particular shall produce to such officer all books and records the production of which shall be demanded by such officer under the next preceding paragraph of this sub-section.
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(5) Every official contractor who shall wilfully obstruct or impede an officer of the Minister in the exercise, in or in relation to any premises of such contractor, of any of the powers conferred on an officer of the Minister by the next preceding sub-section of this section or who shall fail or refuse to do anything which such official contractor is required by the said sub-section to do shall be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds together with, in the case of a continuing offence, a further fine not exceeding two pounds for every day during which such offence is continued.
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(6) Every person (other than the official contractor whose premises are concerned) who shall wilfully obstruct or impede an officer of the Minister in the exercise of any of the powers conferred by this section on an officer of the Minister shall be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to a fine not exceeding five pounds.
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(7) In this section the expression “officer of the Minister” means an officer of the Minister authorised by the Minister to exercise the powers conferred by this section on an officer of the Minister, but the Minister may, if and whenever he so thinks proper, authorise and empower any person who is not an officer of the Minister (whether such person is or is not in the service of the Government) to exercise, in respect of any particular official contractor and either generally or on a particular occasion, the powers conferred by this section on an officer of the Minister, and whenever the Minister so authorises and empowers any such person such person shall, to the extent and for the purposes to and for which he is so authorised and empowered, be deemed to be an officer of the Minister within the meaning of this section.
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