The main legal point established in the judgment is the right to speedy trial and the requirement of evidence to sustain criminal proceedings.

ORDER :

1. Heard Mr. Nandish H. Thackar, the learned advocate appearing for the applicants and Ms.Maithili D. Mehta, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor appearing for the respondent No.1 -State.

2. Though served, respondents Nos.2 and 3 have chosen not to appear before the Court.

3. By way of the present application the applicant herein has invoked Section 482 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 praying for quashing of FIR being C.R. No.III-12 of 2010 registered with Valsad City Police Station, Valsad, dated 01.02.2010 under the provisions of Sections 336, 273, 284, 468, 471, 474, 477(B), 120(B), 114 of Indian Penal Code and Sections 66(1)B, 65(B), (C), (E), (F), 81 and 83 of the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 and further proceedings pursuant thereto qua the applicant.

4. On 01.02.2010, the respondent No.2 herein filed a complaint at about 02.15 hours; at Valsad City Police Station, District : Valsad, against twenty accused persons named therein. The applicant herein is accused No.4 in the said complaint. It is stated by the complainant that he was given the responsibility of finding and controlling serious organized crime at LCT. Further, Valsad being the adjoining to the union Territory of Dadra, Daman and Liquor manufactured in Daman have been smuggled in Gujarat State through the Valsad district and that it is the prime responsibility of the Valsad Police Station to prevent the same.

4.1 It is further stated that Valsad District Police registered 6391 cases in the year 2009, under the Prohibition Act and arrested 6642 accused persons with muddamal of 8,17,564 bottles of IMFL (liquor) manufactured in Daman worth Rs. 6,07,97,225/- alongwith 447 vehicles amounting to Rs.7,81,25,500/-. It is further stated that to unearth the organized crime of smuggling of liquor from Daman into Gujarat check of IMFL bottles found in different offences was carried out and on comparing the batch number and date and other details marked on bottles and on boxes alongwith the record of Excise Department, Daman discrepancy of number of manufactured stock and other details were found and that they did not match and therefore, the police authority came to conclusion that according to the reply and record of Excise Department, Daman, various Distilleries, their owners and directors and wholesale license holder (for the sale of liquor in Daman), are name in the FIR had cheated the Excise Department of Daman.

4.2 It is alleged that the modus operandi of Distillery's of Daman for such type of unlawful production and smuggling of IMFL liquor was found out from the laptop and pen-drive recovered from one of the accused viz. Kishordas Vitthaldas Prajapati, who had been arrested in connection with one of prohibition offence being registered at Umbergaon Police Station, C.R. No.III-285 of 2009. It is stated that going through the data stored in the said pen drive and from the accused, it come to surface that most of the distillery manufacture unlawfully huge stock of liquor and sale it through whole sale license holders and get it smuggled it in Gujarat.

4.3 That the illegal production of IMFL by different distilleries of Daman and which was not mentioned in the record books of Distilleries of Daman was purchased by one Pramod Tandel and entire information of the stock was mentioned in the data stored in pen drive mentioning the name of the manufacturer (distillery); number of boxes and amount; for the month of October 2009 to December 2009. It is further alleged that the above named accused person viz. Pramod Tandel had received the entire stock from different distilleries and had smuggled through different Bar/wine shop owners (named as accused persons in the FIR) and that is how the accused persons had further sold it to the known bootleggers in Gujarat for their economic gains and had earned huge profit, by well planned and organized modus operandi and network and had smuggled huge quantity of IMFL in Gujarat and had thereby committed offences under the provisi