1988 (1) TMI 48

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....les of whisky, etc., and on the basis of such recoveries proceeding was initiated against them under Section 135 of the Customs Act. 3. The plea of the petitioners is that the contraband articles in Question were not recovered from their possession. The defence has examined D.W. in support of their plea. 4. The prosecution has examined, in all, 4P.Ws.to prove its case. P-W. 2 is the Superintendent of Customs and P.W.s 1 and 3 are Inspectors of Customs. P.W. 4 is a teacher and he is examined as an independent witness. The evidence of P.Ws. 1, 2 and 3 shows that on 28-2-1981 they searched the house of the accused persons on the strength of the search warrant issued by the Assistant Collector, Customs, Paradeep; and recovered from their hous....

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....1 to 3 that the contraband articles were recovered from the house of the petitioners. Admittedly P.W. 1 works with the accused persons in the same dock. He claims to be present at the time of the search of the houee but he states that he did not go inside the house which was searched and that he cannot say what articles were recovered from the house on search and from which room the articles were seized. The nature of the evidence of P.W. 1 is such that no reliance can be placed on him when he stated that there was a narrow passage connecting the shop of one Bhimson Sahu with the house which was searched by the statf of the customs department. Hence, it is seen that the evidence of P.Ws. 1,2 and 3 that the contraband articles were seized fr....