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The Petitioner was claimed of blending the beverages in with the liquor past as far as possible. The Court denied the request and held it as not viable under the official courtroom. The Hon’ble High Court of Patna before Justice Mr. Ahsanuddin Amanullah in the matter Aniket Singh v. The State of Bihar[Criminal Miscellaneous No. 37686 of 2020]. 

The facts of the case are that the candidate was captured capture regarding Case, founded under Section 30(a) of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016. It was claimed that the applicant from Hotel Welcome possessed by him just had 534 jars each containing 300 ML of natural product brew with 0.6-0.8% of liquor content recuperated from that point.

The Learned Counsel for the Petitioner had presented that the instance of mala fide and for this thinking the synthetic assessment reports uncovered that the level of liquor by volume differed from 0.6-0.8% which was well under the breaking point by any beverage as arranged in the arrangements.

The learned Counsel added,”… the word “alcoholic beverage or potable liquor”, under Section 2(4) of the Act, has been considered and it has been held that the Act prohibits “intoxicant or liquor containing alcohol of any strength and purity as per the definition of ‘alcoholic’ under Section 2(3) of the Act” and simultaneously, it does not prohibit sale, etc. of non-alcoholic substances in conformity with the standard set by the BIS, in view of the definition and clarification contained under Sections 2(4) and 2(6) of the Act. Thus, it was submitted that both sections, if read together, would show that in the present case whatever has been recovered would not constitute an offence under the Act.”

The Additional Public Prosecutor battled that the beverages recuperated from the solicitors go under the referenced level of the Act. Additionally, the beverages were conveyed by another person to the inn from which the recuperation of the beverages has been impacted.

The Hon’ble High Court of Patna held,” Having considered the facts and circumstances of the case and submissions of learned counsel for the parties, the Court finds that for the purposes of consideration of the present petition, a prima facie offense is required to be seen whether made out under the Act. In the present case, when as per notification dated 19.03.2018, issued by the Ministry of Home and Family Welfare (Food Safety and Standard Authority of India), the alcoholic beverage has been specified as containing more than 0.5 % ethanol and in the present case, the percentage of ethanol being 0.6 to 0.8, prima facie, an offense is made out under the Act. The Act further stipulates that the owner of the premises would also be liable for such recovery. The Court would pause here to indicate that though such presumption is rebuttable, but it has to be at the stage of trial where it has to be proved that the accused had no concern with the recovered article which can be done only upon adducing evidence and the stage would be clearly at the time of trial.”

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Judgment Reviewed By Nimisha Dublish