Mandatory recorded reasons for liquor-shop inspection outside sale hours vitiated the raid, licence cancellation, and connected orders.

Section 48 of the U.P. Excise Act requires recorded reasons before a liquor shop is inspected when it is closed or outside permitted sale hours. The text states that, because no reasons were recorded for the Holi-day raid, the inspection was unauthorised and the resulting seizure, licence cancellation, and connected appellate and revisional orders could not be sustained. Section 53 was treated as inapplicable on the respondents' own showing.

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Issues: Whether the raid and inspection of the liquor shop, conducted when the premises were closed for the Holi holiday, were valid under Section 48 of the U.P. Excise Act, 1910 in the absence of recorded reasons by the competent authority, and whether the consequential cancellation of the liquor licence could be sustained.

Analysis: Section 48 permits entry and inspection of a place kept for sale of intoxicants, but where the inspection is to be made at a time when the shop is not open or outside the permitted hours of sale, the authority must record reasons. The record did not show that any reasons were recorded for authorising the raid. The case was therefore not one of mere irregularity, but of breach of a mandatory statutory safeguard governing the exercise of power. Since the inspection itself was held to be unauthorised, the seizure, cancellation of licence, and the appellate and revisional orders founded on that inspection could not stand. The Court also treated Section 53 as inapplicable on the respondents' own showing.

Conclusion: The raid and inspection were held to be without jurisdiction for non-compliance with the mandatory requirement of recording reasons under Section 48, and the cancellation of the licence and the connected orders were quashed.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition succeeded and the impugned administrative orders were set aside because the statutory precondition for conducting the inspection had not been complied with.

Ratio Decidendi: When the statute makes recorded reasons a condition for inspection of a licensed liquor premises outside the permitted hours or when closed, failure to record such reasons vitiates the search and all consequential punitive action.

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