Court allows one-day Excise custody of Reporter TV MD Anto Augustine in Abkari case
A Sultan Bathery court granted the Excise Department one day's custody of Reporter TV MD Anto Augustine in an Abkari case over liquor seized from his ancestral house in Wayanad.
A court in Sultan Bathery has granted the Excise Department a single day's custody of Anto Augustine, managing director of the Malayalam news channel Reporter TV, in a case registered under the Abkari Act.
The order was passed by Sultan Bathery Judicial First Class Magistrate Adheena Biju on a custody petition moved by the department. The Excise Department had asked for four days with Mr. Augustine; after hearing the prosecution and the defence, the court allowed only one.
Mr. Augustine, who heads Reporter Broadcasting Company, was produced before the court on Saturday in connection with the petition.
The case follows the seizure of liquor in excess of the permissible limit from his ancestral house in Wayanad district. The bottles were found by a Special Investigation Team set up to examine alleged irregularities in a football event sponsored by the company that did not go ahead. The SIT handed the seized stock over to the Excise Department, which registered the case and took Mr. Augustine into custody, officials said.
He was arrested on Thursday and later remanded in judicial custody until September 30, after which he was moved to the Wayanad district jail in Mananthavady. A bail petition was dismissed by the court on Friday.
Mr. Augustine has since approached the Kerala High Court for bail, and that plea is listed for consideration on September 22.