TUSHAR SINGH vs THE STATE OF BIHAR

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA
CRIMINAL MISCELLANEOUS No.23293 of 2023
Arising Out of PS. Case No.-172 Year-2021 Thana- GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL COMP.
District- Buxar
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TUSHAR SINGH S/O BINOD KUMAR SINGH R/O MOHALLA- NEHRU
NAGAR, DIVYALOK CHIKITSA KENDRA, P.S- BUXAR, DISTT.-
BUXAR.
... ... Petitioner/s
Versus
THE STATE OF BIHAR BIHAR
... ... Opposite Party/s
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Appearance :
For the Petitioner/s : Mr.Soni Shrivastava
For the Opposite Party/s : Mr.Ashok Kumar Singh
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CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE ANSUL
ORAL JUDGMENT
Date : 15-05-2026


Heard learned counsel for the petitioner as well as
learned counsel for the opposite party.
2. The present application under Section 482 of the
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter, "the Code") has
been led seeking quashing of the order of cognizance dated
02.11.2021 passed by the learned A.D.J. II-cum-Special Judge
Excise Act, Buxar in Complaint No. 170(O) 2021: Excise Case
No. 172 (O) 2021 Buxar, by which cognizance was taken against
the petitioner, Tushar Singh, under Section 30(a) of the Bihar
Prohibition and Excise Act, 2018 (hereinafter, "the Act of 2018" or
"the Act").

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3. The prosecution case, as disclosed from the First
Information Report and the materials on record, is briefly this: On
15.09.2021, at the inter-state border check-post between Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar, a vehicle bearing Registration No. BR01-DS-
0416 was intercepted by the Excise/Police authorities during
routine checking. At the time of interception, the vehicle was
occupied solely by its driver, Suresh Paswan, and was returning
from Uttar Pradesh. The petitioner, Tushar Singh, who is the
registered owner of the said vehicle, was not present in the vehicle
at the relevant time, nor anywhere near the place of seizure.
4. On search of the vehicle, three bottles of Blender's
Pride whiskey together constituting a small and ostensibly
personal quantity of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) were
found. The driver, upon interrogation, confessed that he had
purchased the said bottles from Uttar Pradesh for his personal
consumption and was carrying them for his own use. He did not
implicate the petitioner in any manner. There is no allegation, and
indeed no material, to suggest that the petitioner had any
knowledge of the liquor being carried in the vehicle, had
authorized or directed the driver to procure the same, or had any
nexus whatsoever with the act of transportation.

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5. Notwithstanding the aforesaid admitted and
undisputed position, the police implicated the petitioner solely on
the ground that he is the registered owner of the vehicle as an
accused under the Act of 2016. The learned Magistrate, without
adverting to the absence of any ingredient connecting the
petitioner to the offence, proceeded to take cognizance against
him. It is this order of cognizance which is impugned in the
present proceeding.
6. The Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, enacted
with the laudable object of enforcing total prohibition on liquor in
the State of Bihar in furtherance of the Directive Principles
enshrined in Article 47 of the Constitution of India, places a
complete ban on, inter alia , the manufacture, bottling,
distribution, transportation, collection, storage, possession,
purchase, sale, and consumption of any intoxicant or liquor within
the State of Bihar. Section 13 of the Act imposes this blanket
prohibition.
7. Section 30(a) of the Act prescribes penalty for any
person who manufactures, possesses, buys, sells, distributes,
transports, removes, or imports any intoxicant or liquor in
contravention of the provisions of the Act. Section 32(2) provides
that nothing in the concerned sub-section shall absolve a person

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who possesses any intoxicant on account of another person from
liability. Section 37 of the Act provides a deeming provision
regarding presumption of guilt, casting an evidentiary burden on
the accused to account for possession.
8. Crucially, the Act does not, either expressly or by
necessary implication, create a rule of absolute vicarious criminal
liability upon a vehicle owner merely by reason of ownership. The
Act addresses liability of persons who possess, transport, or cause
the transport of intoxicants. The principle of vicarious liability in
criminal law remains an exception and must be specifically
enacted; it cannot be inferred or expanded by implication. The
legislature, while enacting the Act of 2016, has specifically
provided in certain contexts for criminal liability of family
members and occupants of premises (Sections 36 and 38), but no
analogous provision imputes the act of a driver to the registered
owner of a vehicle simply on the basis of registered ownership.
9. The following questions arise for consideration in the
present application:
(i) Whether the mere fact of being the
registered owner of a vehicle, without any
knowledge, connivance, or participation in the act of
transporting liquor by the driver, makes the owner

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criminally liable under Section 30(a) of the Act of
2016?
(ii) Whether the cognizance taken against
the petitioner, in the absence of any material
disclosing his knowledge of or participation in the
alleged offence, constitutes an abuse of the process
of the Court warranting interference under Section
482 of the Code?
10. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the
petitioner submits that the petitioner was not present in the vehicle
at the time of seizure; that the driver is a separate legal person
who had procured and was carrying liquor independently for his
own personal use; that there is not a whisper of allegation that the
petitioner had any knowledge of or consent to the act of the driver;
and that the cognizance taken against the petitioner is not only
legally unsustainable but is liable to be quashed as the allegations
in the FIR, even if taken at their face value, do not constitute any
offence by the petitioner.
11. The learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the
State submits that the Act of 2016 is a strict liability statute
enacted with the serious public interest objective of enforcing total
prohibition, and that the petitioner, as registered owner, is

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presumptively liable for acts committed in his vehicle. The State
places reliance on the presumption clause under Section 37 of the
Act to contend that the burden has shifted to the petitioner.
12. This Court has carefully considered the rival
submissions and has perused the materials placed on record. The
power of this Court under Section 482 of the Code is wide,
supervisory, and exercisable to prevent abuse of the process of any
court or to secure the ends of justice. The Supreme Court of India,
in the celebrated decision in State of Haryana v. Ch. Bhajan Lal
& Ors., AIR 1992 SC 604 , laid down, by way of illustration, the
categories of cases in which such inherent power ought to be
exercised. One of those categories is —
"Where the allegations made in the First
Information Report or the complaint, even if they
are taken at their face value and accepted in their
entirety, do not prima facie constitute any offence or
make out a case against the accused."
13. The law is settled that criminal liability is personal
in nature and cannot be attributed to a person vicariously save and
except where the statute specifically and unambiguously so
provides. The general rule in criminal jurisprudence is that both
actus reus (the guilty act) and mens rea (the guilty mind) must
concur for an offence to be constituted. Even in cases where a

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statute creates strict liability dispensing with the requirement of
mens rea , this Court is obligated to examine whether the
legislative intent was truly to cast criminal liability upon one who
had no connection whatsoever with the offending act and no court
of law lightly extends such liability by implication.
14. It is undisputed on the facts of this case that:
(a) The petitioner was not present in the vehicle at
the time of seizure;
(b) The three bottles of Blender's Pride whiskey
were not found in the personal possession of the petitioner;
(c) The driver himself confessed that he had
purchased the liquor for his own personal use from Uttar
Pradesh, making it clear that the act of procurement and
transportation was personal to the driver and not at the
behest of or with the knowledge of the petitioner;
(d) There is no allegation, not even a remotely
probable one in the FIR or in any accompanying material
that the petitioner had instructed, authorized, or connived
with the driver in the transportation of liquor into Bihar;
(e) The quantity involved, three bottles of IMFL,
is consistent with personal consumption and not with
commercial trade or transportation.

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15. The Patna High Court has, in a series of decisions,
consistently held that where the owner of a vehicle is not involved
in the commission of the offence of transportation of illicit liquor,
and there is no consent or connivance attributable to the owner, no
criminal or confiscatory liability can attach to the owner merely
by reason of registered ownership. In Md. Hasmuddeen Ali v.
State of Bihar & Ors., Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 14374 of
2025 (decided on 02.02.2026) , a Division Bench of this Court
comprising Hon'ble Mr. Justice Mohit Kumar Shah and Hon'ble
Mr. Justice Alok Kumar Pandey held that where the owner of a
vehicle is not involved in the commission of the offence of
transportation of illicit liquor, and there is no consent or
connivance attributable to the owner, confiscation won’t lie. The
same principle, a fortiori , governs criminal prosecution of the
owner.
16. The principle that conscious possession is a sine qua
non for criminal liability under the Act has been reiterated by this
Court in Raj Kumar Singh v. The State of Bihar & Anr. ,
Criminal Miscellaneous No. 73433 of 2025 . In that case, this
Court quashed cognizance taken under Section 30(a) of the Act
against a bus passenger near whose seat liquor was found, holding
that the prosecution must demonstrate conscious possession, that

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the person knew about the liquor and exercised control over it.
The ratio is directly applicable to the present case. The petitioner,
being absent from the vehicle altogether, demonstrably had no
conscious possession, no control, and no knowledge of the liquor
that was independently procured and carried by his driver.
17. The reliance placed by the State on Section 37 of the
Act, which creates a presumption that an accused person shall be
deemed guilty unless he satisfactorily accounts for possession is
misconceived on the facts of this case. The presumption under
Section 37 operates against a person who is found to be in
possession of liquor or who is otherwise an accused against whom
primary materials exist. It cannot be invoked as a bootstrapping
device to first create the status of an accused against a person
absent from the scene, and then invoke the presumption against
him. The presumption clause is an evidentiary tool operative
during trial, it does not substitute for the threshold requirement of
prima facie material to sustain cognizance.
18. This Court also takes note of the constitutional
underpinnings of the matter. The Supreme Court of India in
Sharad Navnath Gange v. State of Bihar and allied decisions
[2025(2) PLJR 431] has emphasized that confiscation and adverse
State action against a vehicle owner, without proof of involvement

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or connivance, violates Article 14 (equality before law) and
Article 300A (right to property without authority of law) of the
Constitution. While those were confiscation cases, the principles
are fully applicable to the criminal prosecution of a person where
the FIR and prosecution materials, taken at their highest, disclose
no criminality on his part. Subjecting the petitioner to a criminal
trial on the basis of no material, would be to reduce the criminal
process to an instrument of harassment precisely what Section
482 of the Code is designed to prevent.
19. It is further noteworthy that the quantity of liquor
involved three bottles of IMFL (Blender's Pride), is consistent
with personal consumption and is not suggestive of any
commercial intent or supply. The driver's confessional statement
unequivocally traces the procurement and purpose to himself
alone. This is a materially different situation from cases involving
large-scale commercial transportation of liquor, where inference
of the owner's connivance may be available. On these facts, no
inference can possibly be drawn against the petitioner.
20. In the circumstances, this Court is satisfied that the
allegations in the FIR and the materials accompanying it, even if
accepted in their entirety, do not constitute any offence by the
petitioner or make out any case against him. The implication of

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the petitioner as an accused is based solely on his status as the
registered owner of the vehicle a ground which is neither
sufficient in law nor supportable in fact for criminal prosecution.
Allowing the prosecution to continue against the petitioner would
be a manifest abuse of the process of the court and would occasion
grave injustice. Thus, the instant application is allowed.
21. Accordingly, the order of cognizance dated
02.11.2021 passed by the learned A.D.J. II-cum-Special Judge
Excise Act, Buxar in Complaint No. 170(O) 2021: Excise Case
No. 172 (O) 2021 Buxar is hereby quashed.
(Ansul, J)
amitkr/-
AFR/NAFR AFR
CAV DATE N/A
Uploading Date 28.05.2026
Transmission Date 28.05.2026