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4. The incident leading to these accusations is alleged to have taken place at about 2 p.m. on June 12, 1961. It is alleged that accused Vijaysingh was heavily drunk and came in a state of intoxication, in the office of the District Superintendent of Police, Akola. The accused was driving a jeep car No. BYJ 6299. One Namdeo Shinde, who was also drunk, was occupying a rear seat in the jeep car. The accused was unable to drive the jeep car properly and the jeep dashed against a corner wall of the office of the District Superintendent of Police. This damaged the front left side buffer and the front left wheel and the rim. This was noticed by one Purushottam, a peon in that office. When Purushottam noticed the condition in which the accused had driven the car and halted it in the porch, he informed the Home Inspector Shri Ghai who was then, acting as a Personal Assistant to the District Superintendent of Police, that the accused had arrived in a drunken condition. The, Home Inspector asked Purushottam that they should be brought inside, and they were taken into the office of the Home Inspector by Purushottam. and Janrao. Janrao was another peon in the office of the D.S.P. When questioned by the Home Inspector, the accused told him that he wanted to see the D.S.P. The Home Inspector therefore took the accused into the room where the D.S.P. was doing work. The D.S.P. had a talk with the accused, found him drunk and asked Shri Ghai to call a police Inspector from the City Kotwali and to send the accused for medical examination. The accused was brought back to the room of the Home Inspector. Then the Home Inspector sent a telephone message to Shri Niyamatkhan in the City Kotwali. Niyamatkhan and two other police officers soon reached the office of the D.S.P. and the accused along with Namdeo was handed over to Shri Niyamatkhan to act according to the instructions of the D.S.P. Niyamatkhan called two persons, Prabhakar and one motor driver, and in their presence a Panchnama noting the condition of the accused was prepared. While this Panchnama was under preparation, the peon Janrao brought a bottle from the jeep car. This bottle was found to contain about two ounces of liquid. This bottle was seized.

9. The accused in his examination under Section 342, Criminal Procedure Code, admitted that he went driving a jeep car belonging to the Central Co-operative Bank, Akola, to the office of the D.S.P. at about 2.15 p.m. on June 12, 1961. He also admitted that the jeep car had slightly dashed against the wall and the vehicle was stopped in the porch. He has explained that there was shade under the porch and so he took the vehicle near the wall. The accused denies the allegation that the ear was driven recklessly because the accused was under the influence of drink. The accused has admitted that he asked Purushottam, the peon, whether the D.S.P. was there and that Purushottam had replied in the affirmative. He denied that his mouth was smelling of liquor. His case was that he had consumed medicine and not liquor. He has stated that he had taken the medicine which was found in the vehicle and which was seized by the police, because he was suffering from some stomach trouble and indigestion. As to the incident in the office room of the Home Inspector Shri Ghai, the version of the accused was that the peon Purushottam told him that Ghai was calling him. He refused to go because he wanted to see the D.S.P. and he wanted that the necessary permission may be obtained, but the peon came out with a superior air. The accused refused to go to see Shri Ghai and thereupon Purushottam and another peon, Janrao, dragged him and took him to the office of Shri Ghai by force. He admits that the conversation between himself and Shri Ghai took place in English. He admits that he was taken before the D.S.P. and that the D.S.P. told him that he had drunk liquor. According to the accused he told the D.S.P. also that he had taken medicine and not liquor. In his presence the D.S.P. told Shri Ghai to look into the matter. The bottle from the vehicle was then brought by the peon and the accused was protesting all along that he had not drunk liquor. The accused says that he could not control his anger and that he also wept there. Then Niyamatkhan was called from the police station and he was taken to the Medical Officer. The accused denied that he was talking irrelevantly or that his eyes were red or that his mouth was smelling of liquor or that he was unable to walk and he had to be held by Purushottan and Janrao when he was taken into the office. The accused has denied the presence of two Panchas Prabhakar and Sirajuddin, who were invited to note the condition of the accused when the Panchnama was prepared. The accused admitted that Dr. Deshmukh took the blood sample from his body, but he denied that Dr. Deshmukh examined him otherwise. The accused has suggested that Inspector Ghai gave him an insulting treatment and manhandled him and so he said that he would prosecute Shri Ghai, and therefore this case was started falsely against him. To the last question the accused answered as follows:

15. It is, however, seriously urged that the accused is absolved from the offences charged under any of the three clauses of Sub-section (1) of Section 85 because of Sub-section (2) of Section 85. Section 85(2) is as follows:

In prosecution for an offence under Sub-section (1), it shall be presumed until the contrary is proved that the person accused of the said offence has drunk liquor or consumed any other intoxicant for the purpose of being intoxicated and not for a medicinal purpose.
According to the accused he had become intoxicated, because he had taken an intoxicant for a medicinal purpose and inasmuch as the purpose of taking the intoxicant was innocent and not for being intoxicated, he has committed no offence even if his behaviour satisfied one or the other ingredients of Section 85(1) of the Act. In other words, the argument is that if an accused person gets intoxicated by consuming an intoxicant for medicinal purpose and is found drunk or is drunk and incapable of taking care of himself or is drunk and behaves in a disorderly manner in a public place, he cannot be convicted of an offence under Section 85(1)(1), (2) or (3) of the Act. In support of this proposition the learned Counsel has relied on a Division Bench decision of this Court reported in State v. Trimbak Dhondu Bhoir where the learned Chief Justice observed as follows (p. 545):
...To summarise these alterations to the extent that they are relevant for the purpose of the question that we have to decide, for the first time the law made a distinction between preparations containing alcohol which are fit for use as intoxicating liquor and preparations containing alcohol which are unfit for use as intoxicating liquor, and having made that distinction the Act removed from the ambit of the Prohibition Act those medicinal and toilet preparations which were unfit for use as intoxicating liquor. In other words, the Legislature clearly declared its intention that it wanted to remove the unreasonable restrictions upon the rights of citizens which had been pronounced upon by the Full Bench and the Supreme Court, and the manner in which these restrictions were sought to be removed was that in order to give effect to the Prohibition policy the Legislature would not permit the free use of medicinal and toilet preparations which could be drunk as beverages, because to permit the free use of such preparations would obviously be to defeat the very policy for which the Act was passed. But to the extent that there were toilet and medicinal preparations which would not normally and ordinarily be drunk as beverages and with regard to the free use of which the policy of prohibition would not be affected, the Legislature, as we just pointed out, removed them from the ambit of the Act.