- (1.) The accused was prosecuted for the offence punishable under Section 55(a) of the Abkari Act and was found guilty. He was convicted and sentenced to suffer simple imprisonment for a period of one year and to pay fine of 1 lakh, in default of payment of which he is to suffer simple imprisonment for a period of three months.
(2.) The incident in this case is said to have occurred on 13.05.2000 late in the night. PW6 was the SI of Thirunelli Police Station. He along with PWs 1 and 5 had gone on routine patrol duty and when they reached the place called Kalkkuni, they happened to locate a person by name Prakashan with packets of arrack of Karnataka make and he was arrested. On questioning him, it was revealed that he had obtained the contraband articles from the accused. Therefore, as indicated by Prakashan, PW6 and his team of officers proceeded to the house of Kumaran and reached there by about 21.40 hrs. in the night. When Kumaran was interrogated, he revealed that behind his house, among the coffee plants, he has stored contraband articles. From beneath the coffee plant, a big shopper was seized. That contains several packets of illicit articles. Four of the packets were opened and on examination it was found to contain arrack. The accused was arrested at 21.45 hrs. and Ext.P3 is the arrest memo. From the four packets, which were opened, samples were taken and they were sealed and labelled and the label contained the signature of the witnesses, PW6 and the accused. The rest of the articles were also seized. PW6 returned to the Police Station and registered crime as per Ext.P4 FIR. The seized articles were produced before court on 03.06.2000 and Ext.P5 is the property list. PW6 stated that till that date, the articles remained in his custody. Since he was under law and order duty, he could not produce the articles before the said date. Ext.P6 is the forwarding note prepared by him and Ext.P7 is the chemical analysis report.
(3.) It is not clear from the records that as to who had conducted the investigation, at any rate, it does not appear that investigating officer has been examined in this case. The evidence of PWs 1, 5 and 6 would clearly reveal that somebody else had investigated the case. Whatever that be, after investigation final report was laid.;