KOCHI: On the morning of November 24, 2018, excise officials entered a modest property in a village near Kothamangalam. By afternoon, word had spread in the neighbourhood.
Officials claimed to have seized five litres of arrack and 200 litres of wash, along with utensils allegedly used for distillation. The amount carried weight. For the 42-year-old accused, it marked the beginning of over six years under suspicion.
Court dates followed. Witnesses were examined, and documents and material objects were marked. When questioned, the suspect denied the allegations and maintained his innocence. Though given the opportunity to produce defence evidence, he chose not to do so. Still, the burden remained on the prosecution prove the accused’s guilt.
The assistant sessions court in Muvattupuzha delivered its verdict recently.
In a detailed judgment, it observed that in abkari offences “the crux of the offence is the seizure of the contraband” and that the prosecution must prove that “the very same sample drawn at the place of occurrence was the sample tested in the chemical examiner’s laboratory”. The judge found serious flaws in the investigation.
There was no clear evidence that the samples were kept in tamper-proof custody before reaching the laboratory. Officials who handled the samples at various stages were not examined. The specimen seal was not properly described, and there was an unexplained gap in the movement of the samples.
The delay in filing the final report was also not satisfactorily explained, it said. Crucially, the court held that the prosecution failed to establish that the accused had ownership or control over the house from where the arrack and wash were allegedly recovered. “Without such proof establishing dominion or control over the premises, the court cannot convict the accused,” the ruling noted.
Holding that the prosecution had “miserably failed” to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the court acquitted him.
John Thomas, a lawyer familiar with the case, said the alleged recovery of 200 litres of wash would naturally raise suspicion. “But the court cannot jump to conclusions. In the courtroom, it was not the quantity alleged but the quality of proof that mattered. And when that proof fell short, the court set him free. That is what happened here,” he said.
For the 42-year-old, the verdict closes a sordid chapter. In a village where reputations can harden quickly, the label of being “caught with 200 litres” lingered long after the raid.
Several senior lawyers described the acquittal as a significant setback for the excise department, given the quantity reportedly seized.