Anubha Rawat Choudhary, J. - (1.) Heard Mr. B.K. Dubey, counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners.
(2.) This writ petition has been filed for the following reliefs:- "For a direction to quash the order dated 05.08.1992 passed by the Divisional Forest Officer, Chatra in confiscation case no. 7/91 contained in annexure 3 as well as order dated 10.9.96 passed by the appellate authority in confiscation appeal No. 56/95 and also the order dated 20.8.2001 by which respondent no. 2 has confirmed the order passed by the confiscating authority and that of the appellate authority i.e., the Deputy Commissioner though none of the courts had exercised their jurisdiction judiciously as they have not applied their judicial mind and did not consider that so far the commodities are concerned which were allegedly seized from the truck were of the petitioner or the petitioner has got any concern with the same and at no point of time the petitioner claimed the same as well as it is evident that the petitioner was not present in the vehicle in question and for the same set of allegation a criminal case was also instituted and in the criminal case the petitioner was acquitted as the criminal court held that the prosecution has failed to prove its case that the truck in question was illegally transporting the commodity and so after taking materials into consideration the learned trial court acquitted the petitioner but the confiscating authority, without application of judicial mind, confiscated the vehicle in question though no proper opportunity was given to the petitioner to adduce evidence and even the authority has confiscated the vehicle of the petitioner and so the order is wholly illegal, without jurisdiction and based on violation of the principles of natural justice."
(3.) Counsel for the petitioners by referring to Annexure-1 to the writ petition submits that the truck of the original writ petitioner bearing number UTN 2713 was seized pursuant to order dated 01.04.1991 and from the truck of the petitioner a total of 1775 kilograms of "Katha" in gunny bags were recovered and a seizure list was prepared and pursuant to the aforesaid, First Information Report was also lodged.;