STATE BY PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. A. SUBRAMANIAN CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition is directed against the judgment of the learned Sessions Judge, Madurai reversing the order of confiscation by the District Revenue Officer, Madurai. The State is the Revision Petitioner.

(2.) ON 8.9.1981, at about 4:45 p.m., the Inspector of Police, Civil Supplies ,C.I.D. Madurai, inspected the mill of A. Subramania Chettiar, the respondent herein, and found a shortage of 29.25 quintals of raw paddy accounts and excess of 17.81 quintal of boiled rice and excess of 47.52 quintal of boiled paddy than the actual accounts. Therefore he seized the said quantities of the paddy and rice, and submitted a report to the Collector complaining that the respondent has contravened the Tamil Nadu Paddy and Rice (Regulation of Trade) Order, 1974, and for confliction of the said paddy and rice seized. On this report, the District Revenue Officer held an enquiry, and found the respondent to have committed an offence contravening the provision of Cl. 3(1) of the wholesale licence issued to him and Cl. 16(1) of the Tamil Nadu Paddy and Rice (Regulation of Trade) Order, 1974, and he ordered confiscation of the seized excess quantities of 19.81 quintals of boiled rice and 47.52 quintals of boiled paddy.

(3.) THE learned Sessions Judge, held that there was nothing improper in the Revenue Divisional Officer stating in his show cause notice that the respondent has committed offences, and there is no substance in the contention of the respondent that the Inspector has not satisfied the requirement of (sic) Code of Criminal Procedure, but however regarding the contention that the (sic) has not recorded his reasons to believe that the respondent had committed or was committing or was about to commit an offence before his inspection, the learned Sessions Judge found much force in this contention, and finding that the Inspector has not recorded the (sic) as contended and therefore the entire proceedings were vitiated and far this reason he held the confiscation ordered is illegal, and (sic) he set aside the order of the Revenue Divisional Officer, and ordered return of the articles to the appellant or to pay the (sic) thereof if they had been already (sic) the against this order of the Sessions judge the State has preferred this revision petitioner.