comes under the jurisdiction of Iritty. The counsel submits that though a police officer can come within the definition of the word Abkari Officer, his jurisdiction to function as Abkari Officer is only within his own territorial jurisdiction as police officer and not beyond that limit. It is also submitted that even in such cases after detecting the offence, he has to make over the case to the Excise Officer having jurisdiction as per the notification issued in this regard. The third contention raised on behalf of the appellants is that, there is enormous delay in producing the seized articles before the Court. The counsel points out that, the seizure was on 15.11.1988, but the articles seized were produced in Court only on 11.1.1999 which is almost two months after the incident. The counsel points out that, PW7 has stated in his evidence that the articles were in the Police Station at the relevant time. The counsel relies on the decision in Suresh v. State of Kerala [2017 (2) KLT 765] to submit that this Court has held that even a delay of three days can be fatal for the prosecution.
