MADURAI: Given that the police have not placed any materials, other than a confession statement of the co-accused that the recovered rice belongs to the petitioner, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court said that it is inclined to grant anticipatory bail to the petitioner in a PDS rice smuggling case.
Justice B Pugalendhi was hearing a petition filed by Shaul alias Shahul Hameed M, seeking anticipatory bail in connection with a case booked against him under the Kuzhithurai police station in Kanniyakumari district for smuggling PDS rice.
The allegation levelled against the petitioner is that the PDS rice, recovered from a lorry intercepted by the police on May 7, 2024, containing 214 bags of PDS rice of 10,700 kgs and meant for public distribution, was owned by him.
The lorry owner Karthikeyan and the petitioner were impleaded in the case based on the statement of the lorry driver, S Adharsh, who was arrested in the case. Considering the rival submissions, the court, by an earlier order dated June 6, granted interim anticipatory bail to the petitioner with a direction to the petitioner to appear before the police and also directed the police to file a report. In the report, it was stated that the petitioner is the owner of the PDS rice recovered from the lorry.
However, the investigating agency has not collected any material other than the confession statement of the lorry driver. The investigating agency also did not collect any call details of the lorry driver or the lorry owner, or any material to show the nexus between the accused over this offence.
The court said the fact remains that all the accused hail from Kerala and the PDS rice meant for public distribution in Tamil Nadu was illegally transported to Kerala.
Though the respondent police are capable of recovering the PDS rice, they have not conducted any proper inquiry to find out the role played by the accused persons in the commission of the offence. It shows that in most cases, investigations are being conducted vaguely. Observing that the petitioner himself claims that he is a rice merchant and has a rice warehouse, the court granted him bail.