EMPEROR Vs. CHITAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the Local Government, presenting some peculiar features. The case itself was a simple one. Sub-Inspector Mohan Lal, officer-in-charge of Aurangabad police station, received information that Chitar Singh, a petty shopkeeper of a village called Saidpura, was selling liquor at his shop, which he kept ostensibly for the sale of groceries. Chitar Singh had No. licence for the sale of intoxicating liquor. The Sub-Inspector raided the shop. He says, and he is corroborated by, at any rate, two witnesses, that Chitar Singh was sitting outside his shop as the police officer and those, with him approached, and that he thereupon ran away. The shop being searched, there were found inside seven bottles of country spirit and a barrel of the same, together with a vessel used for filling bottles from the barrel. The expert evidence of Babu Girwar Singh, Excise Inspector, shows that the liquor was of abnormal strength, being more powerful than what is permitted to be issued from Government distilleries. The accused wras not found for some clays. He was eventually arrested, and the Magistrate took cognizance of the case on the report submitted to him by the Sub-Inspector,

(2.) The accused's defence was that the shop was raided in his absence, at the instigation of some enemy of his, and that the same enemy must have planted the liquor in the shop.

(3.) In view of the quantity found, this is a very improbable suggestion. We have examined the evidence in detail and we do not think there is any force in the accused's defence. Such evidence as he called in his defence was fragmentary and contradictory. We are satisfied that on the facts the Magistrate was justified in convicting Chitar Singh, as he did, of an offence punishable under Section 60, Clause (a), of the Excise Act. He did not think it necessary to record an opinion, whether the accused had also been guilty of a further offence, that of selling country spirit; punishable under Section 60, Clause (1)