THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE GOPALA KRISHNA TAMADA CRIMINAL REVISION CASE No.40 OF 2004 ORDER: 1 Petitioners herein were tried in C.C.No.54 of 2002 by the learned Judicial Magistrate of I Class, Prohibition and Excise Cases, Ananthapur for the offence punishable under Section 8 (b) (ii) of the A.P. Prohibition Act, 1995. During the course of trial, the prosecution examined P.Ws.1 to 4 and got marked Exs.P.1 to P.10 and M.Os.1 to 3. The trial court having analysed the said evidence came to the conclusion that the petitioners are guilty of the said offences and accordingly convicted and sentenced them to undergo simple imprisonment for one year each and also to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- each in default to suffer simple imprisonment for a period of three months each. Questioning the said judgment dated 14.08.2003 the petitioners preferred Criminal Appeal No.92 of 2003 and the learned V Additional Sessions Judge (FTC) Ananthapur by his judgment dated 09.01.2004 dismissed the said appeal. Hence this revision. 2 The case of the prosecution in brief is that on 13.1.1998 the Excise officials raided the house of the petitioners who are son and father at Kalluru village. On seeing the raid party the second petitioner ran away but the first petitioner was detained. The raid party searched the house of the accused, which was facing towards North with two rooms and a huge quantity of contraband was seized from the said house. In that connection a case in Cr.No.64/97-98 was registered and after following the due procedure i.e. sending the samples to the public analyst and after receipt of the report who opined that the said samples are IML, the charge sheet was filed. 3 Heard. 4 The learned counsel for the petitioner fairly conceded that this is not a fit case for interference, but however, requested t he court to take a lenient view in so far as the said sentence is concerned. 5 It is true that there is a minimum sentence of one year for the said offence when the said Act was promulgated. But, however, due to the varied circumstances i.e. lifting of prohibition in the State of Andhra Pradesh etc., the Government made the said offence compoundable. In those circumstances, particularly as the prohibition is not in existence in the State of Andhra Pradesh as of now, and as the petitioners were in jail for a period of about ten days, this court is of the view that a lenient view can be taken in so far as the said sentence is concerned. 6 Accordingly, the said sentence of simple imprisonment for a period of one year imposed on the petitioners by the courts below for the offence punishable under section 8 (b) (ii) of the A.P. Prohibition Act, 1995 is reduced to that of the period, which the petitioners had already undergone. Excepting the above modification, in all other aspects this revision is dismissed. -------------- 10.11.2010 Kvsn