C BALAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused was prosecuted for the offence punishable under Section 8 of Abkari Act. He was found guilty and was therefore convicted and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one year and to pay a fine of Rs.1 lakh with default clause of rigorous imprisonment for six months. Set off as per law was allowed.

(2.) The incident which gave rise to the case occurred on 11.10.2004. PW1 was working as Assistant Excise Inspector at Kunnamangalam Range. On that day, while PW1 along with other officers were on patrol duty, by about 6.15 p.m, they happened to come across the accused on the REC-Kakkeri road with a can. He was intercepted and the can was seized. The can contained about 2 litres of arrack. 180ml of arrack was taken as sample, and the sample and the can were sealed and labeled. The label contained the signature of PW1, accused and the witnesses. He claims to have prepared Ext.P1 mahazar. He returned to the office with the accused and the contraband article and entrusted them to the Excise Inspector.

(3.) Pw5 was the then Excise Inspector to whom PW1 had entrusted the accused, contraband articles and documents. He registered the case under Ext.P3 occurrence report. He would say that the seized articles were produced before court on the same day were returned by the court directing him to keep them in office under safe custody and produce them on the next day.