AHMEDABAD: In dry Gujarat, police sometimes tend to act ‘pro-actively’ where they put the law aside and take action according to their will. This happened with a man from Nadiad who was found drunk. Kheda police not only booked him under prohibition laws but also seized his mobile phone and Rs 5,000 from his possession, claiming that the money and phone were used in the offence.
On August 28, when a team of Chaklasi police on patrol at Shurashamal village in Nadiad taluka of Kheda district, they found a man roaming about in an inebriated condition.
According to the FIR filed by Chaklasi police, they stopped the man and asked him walk in a straight line. As he failed the field sobriety test, police began the procedure to book him under prohibition laws.
The cops checked his pockets and found 25 Rs-200 notes and a mobile phone.
Police personnel seized the money and phone claiming them to be “incriminating materials”.
According to prohibition laws, police have to send a person suspected to be drunk for a medical examination to ascertain that he or she has consumed liquor, but there is no provision to seize his or her possessions.
PSI Vishal Shah of Chaklasi police said the police personnel were forced to seize the accused’s possessions as he misbehaved with one of the cops.
“We usually frisk a person if they are found to be committing a crime. Any object belonging to the accused is treated as incriminating material and so we have seized his possessions,” said Shah.
A senior officer in the state police said this is a mischievous act by the cops concerned, because cash and the phone found on an allegedly drunk person cannot be treated as incriminating objects used in the crime. “If a person is found ferrying liquor or in possession of any alcoholic substance, only then can such articles belonging to him be seized. If a person is found to be drunk, it can never be ascertained that the phone or cash was used in the commission of the offence,” said the police officer.
A city-based advocate, Jayendra Abhavekar, said, “There is no provision in the law where a person’s phone or money can be seized just because the person is found to be drunk.” It is not a case of gambling or betting where money can be seized, he said.
