PREM LATA Vs. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The effect of non-compliance of the provisions of sub-section (4) of Section 100, Cr. P.C. falls for determination in this criminal revision.

(2.) The prosecution case is that Police Head Constable Shri Bhagwan Singh (PW-3) was investigating a case at village Ghungar, in Police Station Palampur on April 24, 1983 when he received a secret information that Prem Lata was in possession of illicit liquor and Lahan. Thereupon, he constituted a raiding party consisting of Excise Inspector Arjun Singh (PW-2), Shri Gopi Chand (PW1) and Shri Mohinder Singh. This party conducted search of Prem Lata's house and recovered one tin containing 5 kgs. of Lahan. The Excise Inspector tested the contents of the tin and found that Lahan contained therein was fit for distillation. This ultimately resulted in the filing of a challan and the conviction of the accused under Section 61(1)(q) of the Punjab Excise Act as applicable to the State of Himachal Pradesh.

(3.) It stands clearly established from the prosecution evidence itself that Shri Gopi Chand examined as PW -1 and Shri Mohinder Singh, who was given up as an unnecessary witness at the time of recording the prosecution evidence, were employed in the Home Guards and were further detained on duty of Police Station Palamput on the day the raid was conducted. It has, therefore, been rightly held by the learned Additional Sessions Judge that these witnesses could not be categorised as "Independent and respectable inhabitants of the locality in which the place to be searched is situate" within the ambit of sub-section (4) of Section 100 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Courts below, however, concluded from the testimony of Shri Gopi Chand (PW-1), Excise Inspector Arjun Singh (PW-2) and H.C. Bhagwan Singh (PW.3) that the prosecution had succeeded in bringing guilt home to the accused.