NARAYANAN Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are said to be "Sarvodaya" workers. According to them, their leader is Sri. M. P. Manmadan, a renowned Gandhian. The petitioners are now accused in a case registered as Crime No. 235/86 of the Museum Police Station, Trivandrum. The said crime has been registered on the allegation that the petitioners prevented one Prasad from entering a liquor shop at Nandavanam in Trivandrum. The first information statement was furnished by the said Prasad and the police registered the crime for offences under S.143 and 341 of the Indian Penal Code (for short the Code) read with S.149 of the Code. The incident happened on 8-9-1986 as part of a campaign against the evils of consumption of alcohol. This petition under S.482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is to quash the said crime and the subsequent proceedings.

(2.) According to the petitioners, no physical obstruction had been caused by them to any one entering the liquor shop and instead, what they did was only to persuade those people who are inclined to alcoholism and also those who engage themselves in the distribution of alcohol, to desist from such activities, as the petitioners considered that alcoholism is a perilous social evil. They also contended that they have only done their duty enjoined on them. According to them, it is one of their fundamental duties to cherish and follow the noble ideals of eschewing alcohol, which ideal had once inspired the national struggle for freedom. The idea of physical prevention of any person from entering into the building had never occurred to any one of them, contended the learned counsel for the petitioners. It was also contended alternatively that what they did would never amount to aa offence under S.341 of the Code.

(3.) The offence of wrongful restraint is defined in S.339 of the Code. It involves voluntary obstruction caused to any person so as to prevent him from proceeding in any direction in which that person has a right to proceed. "Voluntarily" is a word of special connotation in the Code as defined in S.39 of the Code. As per the definition, "a person is said to cause an effect voluntarily when he causes it by means whereby he intended to cause it, or by means which, at the time of employing those meats, he knew or had reason to believe to be likely to cause it". It cannot be contended that the intention of the Sarvodaya workers, when they staged their action programmes in front of the liquor shop, was anything other than dissuading people from drinking liquor and to wake up the moral conscience of the public towards the evils of alcoholism. It is a matter of history that propagation of anti alcoholism was one of the cherished programmes of Mahatma Gandhi. The profound influence which the said ideal exerted on the Indian leadership has amply reflected in the inclusion of prohibition as one of the Directive Principles of State Policy in Part IV of the Constitution of India. There can be no two opinions on the fact that the campaign against alcoholism was one of the noble ideals which inspired the Indian thought during the freedom struggle.