KANTILAL DAMODARDAS Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) * * * *

(2.) The next contention of Mr. Patel was that though the bottles were allegedly sealed on 18th September 1969 they were allowed to lie at the police station for inordinately long period. It cannot be gainsaid that the first attempt to deliver the bottles was made on 29th November 1969 followed by a second attempt on 15th December 1969 followed by the de facto delivery on 12th January 1970. As stated above Mr. Vaswani has shown that on 11th September 1969 violent communal riots had broken out in the city of Ahmedabad. Being a matter of common knowledge of local history a judicial notice can be taken of the widespread riots on that day. Mr. Vaswani had come to be transferred from that police stat- ion in the later part of October 1969 and the matter came to be handled by one P.T. T.A. Desai for a very short duration and then the case came to be handled by P.I. Mr. Megha P.W. 12 Ex 170. The delay in the initial stage was on account of the riots and it seems that because of the short period of being in the office Mr. Desai also did not take active and prompt steps as he should have done. Mr. Patel however urged that this High Court has consistently taken the view that in such cases of belated delivery of samples to the chemical analyser the prosecution gets a fatal blow. He invited my attention to the case of JETHAJI SUVAJI V. STATE OF GUJARAT 7 G.L.R. 927 where Justice N. G. Shelat of this court held that unexplained delay threw doors open for a reasonable inference about the possibility of the samples being tampered with when they were lying at the police station.

(3.) This judgment had come to be followed by my esteemed brother B. K. Mehta J. in Criminal Appeal No. 686 of 1970 (CHANDUJI V. STATE) decided on 2nd February 1972. The learned Judge referred to the above reported case of Jethaji (supra) and also another judgment of P. N. Bhagwati J. (as he then was) in Criminal Appeal No. 166 of 1962 (STATE V. SOMAJI) decided on 2nd August 1962. The learned Judge ultimately concluded as follows: