Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marketing) Act, 1937

This is a very old law, dating to 1937, that sets up a voluntary quality-grading and marking system for agricultural produce (and, by extension, some other goods). Section 3 lets the appropriate government — federal for produce meant for export or interprovincial trade, provincial for produce sold within a province — make rules that fix grade designations (like quality tiers), define what each grade means, specify official grade marks, and authorise particular people to apply those marks to produce, its packaging or its labels, under prescribed conditions covering packing, container type and quantity.

Section 4 makes it an offence to mark produce with a grade designation mark without authorisation, or to mark it incorrectly even if authorised, punishable with rigorous imprisonment up to three years, a fine, or both. Section 5 separately punishes counterfeiting a grade mark, or possessing tools for counterfeiting one, with imprisonment up to two years, a fine, or both.

Section 6 lets the government extend the Act's coverage to produce not already listed in the Schedule, or even to goods that are not agricultural produce at all, simply by notification. The Schedule itself lists the covered goods, which have been expanded many times over the decades and now include fruit, vegetables, eggs, dairy produce, tobacco, coffee, hides and skins, cotton, rice, wheat, sugarcane gur (jaggery), wool, spices, oilseeds, animal hair, fish and fish products, among others.

Because this Act is nearly ninety years old and has been amended repeatedly (1939 through at least the 1960s, as shown by the extract's footnotes), its practical operation today depends heavily on the specific grading rules and Schedule notifications currently in force, which are not part of this text.