A commercial truck intercepted with contraband liquor in Gujarat, seized in January 2025, and left to deteriorate while the trial crawled — that familiar scenario reached the Supreme Court in M/s ABC Express v. State of Gujarat, 2026 INSC 940, decided on 2 September 2026. Allowing the owner's appeal from a special leave petition, a Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar directed interim release of the vehicle on conditions, holding that the embargo in the State prohibition law is not an absolute bar on the court's power to release seized property pending trial. The reasoning matters well beyond Gujarat.
The problem the case addresses
Every district in the country has a police compound of decaying vehicles — seized in excise, narcotics and theft cases, and reduced to junk by the time the trial ends. The law has long recognised the futility of this: the power to order interim custody of property pending trial exists precisely so that assets retain value for whoever ultimately wins them, and confiscation, where ordered, can operate on the security instead of the wreck. Special statutes, however, sometimes appear to shut that door — and prosecuting agencies read them as absolute. ABC Express is the latest word on how such provisions are to be understood.
The appellant's predicament
The appellant's truck was carrying nearly a crore rupees' worth of legitimate goods along with the offending consignment; the driver lacked permits for the liquor. With the vehicle seized, the owner faced the classic bind: a depreciating asset, an idle capital cost, and a trial with no early end. The State resisted release on the strength of the statutory embargo, and the matter travelled through the Gujarat courts to the Supreme Court by special leave — an illustration of Article 136's continuing role in interlocutory criminal matters where property and livelihood are at stake.
The Court's balance
Using the decision in practice
For practitioners in Delhi and elsewhere, the judgment supplies a current, citable framework for vehicle-release applications under the BNSS — including in excise, gambling and similar special-statute seizures where prosecutors urge an embargo. The application should: identify the owner and the vehicle's documents; address the special statute's language and show why it does not oust the general power; propose concrete safeguards mirroring those the Supreme Court imposed — bond, security, no-alienation, production undertakings, photographic record; and squarely accept that release is provisional, with security answerable to any confiscation order at the end of trial.
Owners who are not accused deserve particular attention: where the vehicle's owner is a transporter or financier uninvolved in the offence, the equities in favour of interim release are at their strongest, and the conditions can be calibrated accordingly.
The wider signal
The decision continues a consistent judicial theme: property seized as evidence or as an instrument of offence should be managed, not abandoned. Where the statute's purpose can be secured by conditions, custody in a police yard is the worst available option. The judgment of 2 September 2026, in the appeal arising from SLP (Crl.) No. 10301 of 2026, is linked in full below. This case note is an informational summary and not legal advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was seized and why?
A truck was intercepted in January 2025 carrying over eight thousand bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor without permits, alongside legitimate edible goods of substantial value. A case was registered under the Gujarat Prohibition Act, 1949, and the vehicle was seized. The owner — a transport company — sought its interim custody pending trial.
What was the legal obstacle to release?
Section 98(2) of the Gujarat Prohibition Act was urged as prohibiting release of a vehicle on bond or surety where the quantity of liquor exceeds prescribed thresholds. The question was whether that provision extinguishes the criminal court's general power to entrust seized property to its owner pending trial.
What did the Supreme Court hold?
That the provision is not an absolute embargo. Courts retain discretion under Section 451 CrPC — the power now found in the corresponding provision of the BNSS — to balance the owner's interest against public interest, particularly given the reality that vehicles deteriorate into scrap during prolonged police custody. The Court ordered release on a personal bond of fifteen lakh rupees with security and safeguards.
What conditions were imposed?
An undertaking to produce the vehicle whenever required, a prohibition on alienating or creating third-party rights, detailed photographic and video documentation of the vehicle's condition before release, and the prospect that the security stands forfeited if confiscation is ultimately ordered at trial.