The petitioner in this case is one Abdullah carrying on a petty betel shop business in Gandhi-Irwin Road, Egmore. The prosecution case was that P.W.1, a Sub-Inspector of Police, searched his shop on 1st October, 1949 and seized therefrom 10 bottles (M.O.1) suspected to contain liquor. On analysis, on 12th December, 1949, they were found to contain 14 per cent spirits. The petitioner’s contention before the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate, who tried him, was that the bottles seized from his shop were bottles called Jeeva Bhaskaram, a medicinal preparation exempted by the Madras Government from the operation, of the Prohibition Act and said to contain 02 per cent spirits and manufactured by D.W.1, K.B. Subramaniam, an illiterate man who submitted a bottle of this mixture to the Board of Revenue which tested it and found it to contain 02 per cent spirits, and exempted it from the operation of the Act. D.W.2, a neighbouring shopkeeper, corroborated the petitioner’s version and said that the 10 bottles seized were only bottles of Jeeva Bhaskaram. The learned Chief Presidency Magistrate did not believe the evidence of D.W.2 as he was a neighbouring shopkeeper and a fellow Musl