The court established the procedural right of a victim to regain possession of stolen property when unclaimed by others.

ORDER

Petitioner is the owner of MOs 1 to 3 produced in C.C No.446 of 2015 pending on the files of the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court-I, Ettumanoor. The case originated from Crime No.28 of 2015 registered at the Gandhinagar Police Station, Kottayam for offences under Sections 454 , 461 and 380 of the Indian Penal Code .

2. The prosecution allegation is that between 3.1.2015 and 4.1.2015, the gold ornaments, MOs 1 to 3 were stolen by the accused from the petitioner’s house. The stolen articles were sold to CW4 and with the proceeds of the crime, the accused purchased a motorcycle. Based on the statement under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act given by the accused, the gold ornaments were recovered from the shop of CW4 and produced in court. Thereafter, the petitioner filed an application under Section 451 of the Cr.P.C which was dismissed. After trial and conviction of the accused, an application under Section 452 was filed, which was also dismissed on the premise that an appeal is pending. The appeal was allowed by the court and the matter remitted to the trial court for conducting trial afresh. At that stage, the petitioner again moved an application under which stands dismissed by the impugned order.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the articles were stolen from the petitioner’s possession and neither the accused nor CW4 have raised any claim over the ornaments. It is submitted that the petitioner has been waiting to get his ornaments released for more than 10 years.

4. I heard the learned Public Prosecutor also.

5. I find substantial merit in the contention of the counsel for the petitioner that as no other person has claimed right over the ornaments, which admittedly was stolen from the petitioner’s residence, the court below could have released the ornaments on interim custody to the petitioner subject to conditions.

The Crl.M.C is hence disposed of by quashing Annexure A5 order and directing the trial court to release the gold ornaments belonging to the petitioner by imposing appropriate conditions.