The central legal point established in the judgment is that the owner of a seized vehicle is entitled to interim custody pending investigation or pending passing of an order of confiscation in accordance with Section 14(4) of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, emphasizing the balance of convenience and the stringent conditions for passing a valid order of confiscation.

1. This Criminal Revision case has been filed against the order of the learned Judicial Magistrate, Srivaikundam dated 11.09.2014, made in Crl.M.P.No.6185 of 2014 on the file of his Court. The said petition was filed under Section 457 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking delivery of the Omni-bus bearing Regn. No.PY01CC3366 to keep its interim custody, pending investigation and pending disposal of the criminal case registered on the file of the Kurumbur Police Station, Thoothukudi District in Cr.No.239 of 2014 of the said Police Station. The said case was registered for alleged offences punishable under Sections 4(1)(aa), 4(1-A) and 14A of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, 1937.

2. The averments in the First Information Report are that a large quantity of liquor was transported from Puducherry to Kanyakumari in a Tata Magic Van; that when the said vehicle was intercepted by the respondent police and the contraband found therein was seized, the driver of the vehicle made a confession revealing the fact that 124 bottles of liquor of different varieties were being transported in the above said Omni-Bus and that pursuant to the aforesaid information, the Omni-bus was stopped and the contraband found therein was seized. Besides the seizure of the contrabands found in the said vehicles, the vehicles also were seized by the police.

3. We are not concerned with the Tata Magic vehicle, because the present revision arises out of the dismissal of the petition filed for the delivery of the above said omni-bus alone. Crl.M.P.No.6185 of 2014 came to be filed under Section 457 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by the revision petitioner for getting interim custody of the omni-bus, because after seizure, the vehicle was not produced before the Magistrate and the seizure alone was intimated to the Magistrate.

4. The learned Judicial Magistrate, after hearing, dismissed the petition on the sole ground that an objection was raised by the respondent stating that proceeding for confiscation of the vehicle was initiated and the same was pending on the file of the Prohibition Officer, namely the Additional Superintendent of Police, Prohibition Wing, Thoothukudi. As against the said order dismissing the above said petition, Viz., Crl.M.P.No.6185 of 2014, the present Criminal revision case has been filed.

5. The arguments advanced by Mr. K. Samidurai, learned counsel for the petitioner in the criminal revision case and Mrs. Prabha, learned Government Advocate (Criminal side) representing the respondent herein are heard. The copy of the order of the court below and the documents produced in the form of typed set of papers are also perused.

6. It is the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the vehicle having been seized about a month earlier, will get deteriorated in its value and utility if allowed to lie idle in the police station, exposed to light and rain and that when such vehicles are seized in connection with criminal cases and the registered owner of the vehicle come forward with petitions seeking interim custody of the vehicle either under Section 451 or under Section 457 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, such petition should be liberally dealt with in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Honourable Supreme Court in 2003 SCC (Cri) 1943, Sundarbhai Ambalal Desai Vs. State of Gujarat.

7. It is the further contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the driver of the vehicle, which was plied regularly between Puducherry and Kanyakumari was in charge of it and that any one of the passengers could have booked the luggage without informing the driver that the luggage contained bottles of liquor and that the mere fact that the person who was caught by the police, while transporting liquor in the Tata Magic car, made a confession that some more bottles were being transported in the omni-bus would not be enough to make a prima facie case that the driver was also an accomplice. It is the further contention