IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD THURSDAY, THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND NINE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD Criminal Petition No.6219 of 2009 Between: Md. Yakub Pasha .. Petitioner AND The State of A.P. rep. by Public Prosecutor, High Court, Hyderabad and others .. Respondents Petition under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. praying that in the circumstances stated in the grounds filed therewith, the High Court will be pleased to direct the Court of Judicial First Class Magistrate, Kothagudem to pass orders for release of the Auto bearing Reg. No.AP 37 Y1759 seized in P.R. No.1128/07-08 of Prohibition and Excise Station, Kothagudem, Khammam District, etc. The petition coming on for hearing, upon perusing the petition and the grounds filed in support thereof and upon hearing the arguments of Sri NAGESWAR RAO PALLE, Advocate for the petitioner and of the Public Prosecutor for the respondents, The Court made the following: ORDER: Heard Sri Palle Nageswar Rao, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri A. Ramesh, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor for all the three respondents. The crime and occurrence report in P.R. No.1128/07-08 was registered on 08-02-2008 on seizure of 7 gunny bags of black jaggery and a plastic can of 5 litres of illicitly distilled liquor from the auto in question and the auto driver was shown as the accused. The petitioner claiming to be the owner of the auto, filed a copy of the certificate of registration and subsequently on the application of the petitioner for interim release of the vehicle, the vehicle was assessed to be worth Rs.70,000/- and the petitioner claims that he purchased the auto with the finance availed from Indus Ind Bank Limited, Vijayawada, Krishna District and engaged the accused in the crime as the driver. He was innocent of the transport of contraband by the driver in the auto and he further claimed that he is eking out his livelihood only by running the auto apart from repaying the loan instalments. The petitioner is not in a position to furnish fixed deposit receipts for Rs.70,000/- as desired by the 2nd respondent and the vehicle, if kept unused, will get damaged. Hence, he sought for release of the vehicle. The Apex Court laid down the guidelines concerning the interim custody of the vehicles seized in crimes in Sunderbhai Ambalal desai v. State of Gujarat[1] and accordingly, the power under Section 451 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should be exercised expeditiously and judiciously to avoid the seized vehicles becoming junk due to disuse. Therefore, the auto can be released in favour of the petitioner by way of an interim measure subject to appropriate conditions. In the result, the auto No.AP 37 Y1759 seized in P.R. No.1128/07-08 of Prohibition and Excise Station, Kothagudem, Khammam District shall be entrusted to the interim custody of the petitioner on his execution of a personal bund for Rs.60,000/- (Rupees sixty thousand only) with one surety for a like sum to the satisfaction of the Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Kothagudem and on the petitioner further undertaking to maintain the auto in the same physical state without any change in any physical features and without any alienation till the finality of the criminal proceedings and further undertaking to produce the auto whenever directed by the Court. The criminal petition is ordered accordingly. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 13-08-2009 Svv [1] (2002) 10 Supreme Court Cases 283