Stating that it is not uncommon for accused in criminal cases to spend ill-gotten money on wine, women and other luxuries, the Madras High Court Bench here has ordered a lower court to hand over gold jewellery, recovered from a gang, to a Sivakasi-based businessman who was abducted for ransom on March 4 and released the next day on payment of Rs. 25 lakh.
Allowing a revision petition filed by the businessman, Panneerselvam, Justice P. Devadass set aside an order passed by a Judicial Magistrate in Sivakasi on June 30 refusing to hand over Rs. 14.25 lakh and 7.75 sovereigns of gold jewels, seized by the police, to the petitioner on the ground that the accused had laid a rival claim of ownership over the seized cash and jewels. The petitioner’s counsel, N. Dilip Kumar, contended that the Magistrate had erred in ordering deposit of the money and the jewels in a nationalised bank until the conclusion of the trial when the members of the gang had confessed to the police of having shared the ransom among themselves and purchased jewels.
Mr. Justice Devadass said lower courts should not summarily reject a petition for return of recovered property, without holding a proper enquiry, just because the accused in the case had laid a rival claim of ownership. “If there is a case, there will be a counter case. But there should also be a judicial order deciding the disputed matter or rival claim,” the judge said.
He went on to state: “There are instances where out of their share of booty, the accused spend the amount lavishly on wine and women because it is not their own money.
Actually, they enjoy at the cost of others. Sometimes they buy jewels and other valuables out of the booty. In such circumstances, those acquired items become part of crime property.”
In so far as the present case was concerned, the judge pointed out that the accused had never complained to any authority accusing the police of having forcibly seized cash and jewels belonging to them until the petitioner laid a claim over those properties. “In such circumstances, necessarily petitioner is the owner of the cash. Since the jewels came out of ransom money, they must also go to him,” he added.
