1. These appeals are filed by A1 and A2 respectively, who faced trail and were convicted for offence under section 55(a) of Abkari Act. They were sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for four years and to pay Rs.1,00,000/- each as fine and in default to undergo simple imprisonment for one year.

2. The gist of the prosecution case is that on 30.12.1999, while PW1, the Excise Inspector and other officials were on patrol duty and when they reached Maloor Government High School at about 12.30 p.m., they got reliable information that A1 was keeping possession of spirit in his house. After preparing the search memorandum and sending it to the Court and after complying with the procedure prescribed under the Code of Criminal Procedure, they entered the house bearing no: EP VI/473 of Enadimangalam Panchayat. It is a two storied building. They searched all the four rooms situated in the ground floor but nothing could be recovered. They went upstairs. In the two rooms situated on the eastern side, they could not see any contraband articles. But in the corner of the western room they could find a plastic can of a capacity of 35 litres which contained 32 litres of spirit. There