SMT. CHAMPA DEVI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for revision of an order of the Sessions Judge, Azamgarh, confirming the order of a Magistrate, First Class, confiscating the car of the applicant under Sec. 72(e) of the U.P. Excise Act, and also giving the applicant an option to get the car released on payment Rs. 5,000.00.

(2.) The applicant is the owner of car No. USQ 8110, which is registered in her name as a private car. Her driver Mewa Lal took it to Azamgarh. When he was bringing back the car from Azamgarh, one Onkar Nath Pandey was sitting on the back seat of the car. At about 4 a.m. on Aug. 3, 1966 the Excise Inspector Sri M. M. Siddiqi stopped it at the railway level crossing at Belaisa, about two miles from the city of Varanasi. On a search being taken, five bags of illicit Ganja were recovered, one on the front seat and two each on the back seat and in the luggage boot of the car. Each bag contained 20 kg. of Ganja. The applicant, the driver, and the occupier of the car were all prosecuted under Sec. 60(a) of the U.P. Excise Act. The Magistrate convicted the driver Mewa Lal and the occupier Onkar Nath Pandey under Sec. 60(a) of the Excise Act, but acquitted the applicant of that charge. He, however, ordered the confiscation of the car belonging the applicant under Sec. 72(e) of the U.P. Excise Act. He further ordered that the applicant was given an option to get the car released on payment of Rs. 5,000/ The learned Sessions Judge maintained the order passed by the Magistrate.

(3.) It is against the order under Sec. 72(e) of the U.P. Excise Act that the applicant has come up in revision to this Court.