Supreme Court to examine validity of Section 58 of Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 read with specific Rules

In The State of Bihar & Ors. vs. Shankar Baranwal (2025), Supreme Court's bench of Chief Justice B.R.Gavai. Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice N.V. Anjaria passed an order dated August 9, 2025. It issued notice as it is all set to to examine validity of Section 58 of Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 read with Rules 12 A and 12 B of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Rules, 2021. Its order reads:"Until further orders, there shall be stay insofar as the direction issued by the High Court to make the payment by the valuer is concerned. The case arose out of impugned 7-pag long final judgment and order dated April 16, 2025 in Shankar Baranwal vs. The State of Bihar & Ors. (2025) passed by the Patna High Court's Division Bench of Justices P. B. Bajanthri and S. B. Pd. Singh. 

The High Court's judgement was authored by Justice Bajanthri. The petitioner had prayed for issuance of writ in the nature of certiorari or any other appropriate writ, order or direction for quashing the order dated January 17, 2022 passed in Excise Revision Case No. 282/2021 by Additional Chief Secretary, Bihar, Patna whereby and whereunder the order dated September 10, 2021, passed in Excise Appeal Case No. 523/2021 by the Commissioner, Excise, Patna and order dated July 17, 2021, passed in Confiscation Case NO. 118/2021 by the District Magistrate, Kaimur at Bhabua, which arose out of Durgawati P.S. Case No. 74/2020 have been confirmed and Safari car bearing Registration No. UP-60V-0160 of the petitioner was confiscated and also for giving direction to release the aforesaid vehicle of the petitioner. 

Justice Bajanthri observed: "It is to be noted not even reference to value of the vehicle purchased and depreciation year wise with reference to any policy or the Government or General Insurance Company. In the absence of assessment and randomly evaluation of vehicle in wholesale is highly deprecated. Irrespective of movable and immovable property cannot be valued with the naked eye by the bureaucrats of the State of Bihar and proceed to undertake auction and causing the state exchequer under loss and for the concerned person. In almost each and every case Motor Vehicle Inspectors are evaluating valuation of the vehicle in wholesale without there being individual assessment of the vehicle or property with reference to evaluation like date of purchase and value of what would be value as on the date of seizure of the vehicle and on the date of auction. 5. Having regard to the facts that one liter of liquor has been seized from the subject matter of vehicle, petitioner shall not be penalized in seizing vehicle and auctioning the vehicle at throw away price and realised amount remitting arbitrary and illegal." 

In the light of these observations, the High Court concluded: "the confiscation order, appellate authority order and revision authority order stands modified to the above extent, while exercising extra ordinary jurisdiction under article 226 of constitution", in order to avoid further legal proceedings. 

Supreme Court quashes judgments, orders of High Court and Special Judge, Kurukshetra against Haryana IPS officer, Bharti Arora in NDPS case

Supreme Court's bench of Justices B.R Gavai, P.K Mishra and K.V. Viswanathan delivered a judgement on December 13, 2024 quashing the judgments and orders of High Court and Special Judge, Kurukshetra against Haryana IPS officer Bharti Arora in a proceedings initiated against the her for the offence punishable under Section 58 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. The Special Judge had recorded the findings against the appellant as well as the other police officers without even issuing notice to them. Notably, on October 26, 2010, the Court had stayed the High Court's judgment and order which had refused to interfere with the Special Judge, Kurukshetra and upheld the order dated May 30, 2008. The High Court's order dated May 19 2008 had refused to entertain the revision with the observation that the order passed by the learned Special Judge should not be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits of the matter.

Justice Gavai who has authored the 39-page long judgement observed that the Special Judge had acted in a predetermined manner. The "Special Judge had given a complete go-bye to all the principles of natural justice. It is a well-settled principle of law that justice should not only be done but should be seen to be done." He underlined that the "Special Judge could not have conducted the proceedings against the present appellant for the offence punishable under Section 58 of the NDPS Act inasmuch as such proceedings could have been conducted only by a Magistrate. Undisputedly, the procedure as required under Chapter XX i.e. Sections 251 to 256 of the Cr.P.C. has also not been followed." 

He recalled the Court's decision in State of West Bengal and Others v. Babu Chakraborthy (2004) 12 SCC 201 : 2004 INSC 492. In this case, the accused persons were convicted for an offence punishable under the NDPS Act. In the appeal preferred by them, while allowing the appeal, the High Court made several strictures and observations against two officers of the West Bengal Police in an IPS Cadre. In the said case also, the allegations against the said officers were with regard to violation of provisions of Section 42 of the NDPS Act. The Court observed:"In our view, the High Court was not justified and correct in passing observations/strictures against Appellants 2 and 3 without affording an opportunity of being heard, and it is in violation of a catena of pronouncements of this Court that harsh or disparaging remarks are not to be made against the persons and authorities whose conduct comes into consideration before courts of law unless it is really necessary for the decision of the case. Likewise, the directions issued by the High Court to the trial court to lodge a complaint to the Magistrate having jurisdiction for prosecuting Appellants 2 and 3 for having committed an offence under Section 58 of the Act read with Sections 166 and 167 of the Penal Code, 1860 is not warranted. The observations made by the High Court are liable to be expunged and accordingly."

It cited the following passage from Jackson’s Natural Justice (1980 Edn.). It reads: “The distinction between justice being done and being seen to be done has been emphasised in many cases. . . .The requirement that justice should be seen to be done may be regarded as a general principle which in some cases can be satisfied only by the observance of the rules of natural justice or as itself forming one of those rules. Both explanations of the significance of the maxim are found in Lord Widgery, C.J.'s judgment in R. v. Home Secretary [(1977) 1 WLR 766, 772] , ex. p. Hosenball, where after saying that “the principles of natural justice are those fundamental rules, the breach of which will prevent justice from being seen to be done” he went on to describe the maxim as “one of the rules generally accepted in the bundle of the rules making up natural justice”. It is the recognition of the importance of the requirement that justice is seen to be done that justifies the giving of a remedy to a litigant even when it may be claimed that a decision alleged to be vitiated by a breach of natural justice would still have been reached had a fair hearing been given by an impartial tribunal. The maxim is applicable precisely when the court is concerned not with a case of actual injustice but with the appearance of injustice or possible injustice. In Altco Ltd. v. Sutherland [(1971) 2 Lloyd's Rep 515] Donaldson, J., said that the court, in deciding whether to interfere where an arbitrator had not given a party a full hearing was not concerned with whether a further hearing would produce a different or the same result. It was important that the parties should not only be given justice, but, as reasonable men, know that they had had justice or “to use the time hallowed phrase” that justice should not only be done but be seen to be done. In R. v. Thames Magistrates' Court, ex. p. Polemis [(1974) 1 WLR 1371] , the applicant obtained an order of certiorari to quash his conviction by a stipendiary magistrate on the ground that he had not had sufficient time to prepare his defence. The Divisional Court rejected the argument that, in its discretion, it ought to refuse relief because the applicant had no defence to the charge. It is again absolutely basic to our system that justice must not only be done but must manifestly be seen to be done. If justice was so clearly not seen to be done, as on the afternoon in question here, it seems to me that it is no answer to the applicant to say: ‘Well, even if the case had been properly conducted, the result would have been the same. That is mixing up doing justice with seeing that justice is done (per Lord Widgery, C.J. at p. 1375).”

The Court observed that the Special Judge acted, without even giving notice to her, only on the basis of the arguments advanced at the stage of final hearing of the matter, made adverse observations against her by almost finding her guilty of the offence punishable under Section 58 of the NDPS Act. While doing so, neither any notice nor was any opportunity of being heard given to her.