Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
Possession not to be presumed. - When a person is prosecuted it is for the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt or at any rate up to a high degree or probability that the article had been kept where they were found, by the accused or with the knowledge. Although it may be presumed that the accused has committed an offence in respect of any excisable article etc. for the possession of which he fails to account satisfactorily, yet before the presumption can arise possession itself must be proved. The section does not say and does not mean that possession is to be presumed. Conviction of accused is illegal when no legal evidence to show that it was his house from which non duty paid article was recovered. When it appears that the Courts have shown a great tendency to treat mere inferences and probabilities as proof, <rd evidence has not been properly weighed, the Court will interfere in the interests of justice. In order to raise presumption of guilt against an accused it must be established/proved that he was in possession of an intoxicant. A person in occupation of a house cannot be presumed to be in possession of every thing found in the house. Where a person who was of a different caste and had no relation with the occupants of the house where the intoxicants were found concealed, it was held that it was possible that the person might have brought the intoxicants in the house and concealed them without the knowledge of the occupants about it.