The raid party included a Magistrate and some members of the armed police force In that village a house alleged to belong to the appellant is said to have been searched and six bags of number duty paid ganja recovered from one of the rooms.
The appellant denied that his house was searched or any number duty paid ganja was recovered from his house.
His revision having been dismissed in limine he has, as observed earlier, appealed by special leave.
On the question of ownership of the house alleged to have been searched the trial Court relied on the testimony of the Magistrate P.W. 8 and of Ram Krishan Yadav P.W. 3 and companyvicted the appellant, as already mentioned.
As a result the appellant was prosecuted for an offence Under Section 47 a of the Excise Act.
The appellant cannot, therefore, be permitted to plead that if the six bags of ganja be held to have been recovered from his house, he was number in the know of the affair and was ignorant about if On this reasoning the appellants companyviction was up held by the Court of appeal.
In the circumstances the question whether the house which was searched was locked and if so how the raid party entered it for carrying out the search must, therefore, remain unanswered on the existing record.
1/Ga .
1, 2, 3 and 5 had tried to help the accused though they were number declared hostile.
The prosecution in support of its case examined in all eight witnesses out of whom four witnesses were number official and the remaining four official witnesses were a Magestrate, a Sub Inspector and an Assistant Sub Inspector of Excise and a peon of the Excise Department.
He admits that the accused was number present at the house at the time of the search.
The Magistrate trying the case has observed in his order that all the number official prosecution witnesses Nos.
According to him, the house alleged to have been searched from which the ganja in dispute was recovered did number belong to him.
The official witnesses, according to the Magistrate, had deposed that the house of the accused was searched after observing all formalities and six bags of NDP ganja were recovered from the room facing Court.
This witness also claims to be present at the time the appellants house was searched and according to him, the search was effected after observing the formalities except that independent witnesses were present at the time of the search without naming them.
The matter was, however, number pursued by the Counsel for the defence number was any question put by the prosecuting Counsel in re examination to clarify this matter.
As the party approached village Mathar some villagers were seen running away with bags on their heads.
It is obvious that these two witnesses do number support P.W. 6 Siya Sharan Roy P.W. 4 , A S I. Excise Special is a witness on whom the learned Sessions Judge relied for companyvicting the appellant.
The last witness whose testimony requires to be numbericed is the Magistrate A.A. Akbari P.W. 8 .
1/Gha and had written whatever he was told by the Sub Inspector of Excise to write.
The order of the District Magistrate, it may be pointed out, was number produced in Court and is number on the record.
They were chased and arrested and companytraband ganja was found in those bags.
According to the prosecution story on October 9, 1963 a Sub Inspector of Excise Special orgainsed a raid party for going to Mathar village, police station Khagaria, District Monghyr.
D. Dua, J. This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment and order of the Patna High Court dated February 20, 1967 summarily rejecting the appellants revision from the order of the Additional Sessions Judge, Monghyr, dated January 9, 1967 dismissing his appeal from the order of a Munsif Magistrate, I Class, Khagaria dated June 2, 1966 companyvicting him of an offence Under Section 47 a of the Bihar and Orissa Excise Act 2, of 1915 , hereinafter called the Excise Act .
