Judgment

VENKATARAMIAH, J. - The Assistant Collector of Central Excise, Calicut has filed this appeal after obtaining the special leave of this Court against the judgment and order dated January 5, 1973 of the High Court of Kerala in Criminal Revn. Petn. No. 426 of 1972 : (reported in 1973 Cri LJ 1551).

2. Briefly stated, the facts of the case are these : In the early hours of Aug. 9, 1969 the respondent alighted from the Kerala Express at the Trichur Railway Station with a steel trunk in his hand. C. C. Mathan, Inspector of Central Excise Special Customs, Preventive, Trichur (P. W. 1) who was on patrol duty at the Railway Station suspected that the respondent was carrying contraband goods and on coming to know from the Ticket Examiner that the respondent had arrived from Bombay he asked the respondent to hand over the steel trunk which he was carrying. When C. C. Mathan (P. W. 1) opened and searched the steel trunk, he found in it 28 gold bars with foreign markings. The respondent was arrested by C. C. Mathan (P. W. 1) and when questioned by P. W. 1, the respondent did not produce any authorisation entitling him to keep the 28 gold bars in question which were valued at Rs. 56,000/-.