State Of Punjab vs Mandeep Singh on 30 October, 2014
23. Evidently, no public witness to the recovery of the liquor has been
either cited in the list of witnesses or examined by the prosecution. It is
not the case of the prosecution that no public person was present at or
near the spot of recovery as it is an admitted position that there were
customers and staff at the Restaurant at the time of the raid. Despite
presence of other shop keepers, public persons i.e. customers or the staff
i.e. servers or waiters of the Restaurant have been joined in the raid or in
the investigation who could have deposed that alcohol was served sans
license in the Restaurant. Further, no notice was served upon the public
persons for reasons which remain unexplained. The IO has neither served
a notice upon the public persons nor wrote down the description of the
persons who had allegedly refused to join the investigation. The IO had
not served any notice under Section 160 of the Code upon the persons
State vs. Mandeep Singh etc.
FIR No. 38/2012, PS: Hauz Khas Page 19 of 24
who refused to join the investigation. Thus, the prosecution has failed to
prove that any serious effort was made by the IO to join public witnesses
in the proceedings. From perusal of the record, no serious effort for
joining public witnesses appears to have been made. It is a well settled
proposition that non-joining of public witness casts doubt over the
fairness of the investigation by police. Section 100(4) of the Code also
casts a statutory duty on an official conducting search to join two
respectable persons of the society. Same has not been done in the present
case. This casts a doubt on the fairness of the investigation.