Metropolitan Magistrate Devender Nain let off West Delhi residents Amarjeet Singh, Virender Kumar and Anil Kumar saying the formality of police officials offering their own search by the accused was not followed.
"The manner in which the search of the accused was conducted on the spot is also not satisfactory as the police persons had not offered their own search to the accused before taking the search of accused," the judge said.
"It appears that no serious attempt was made by the police inspector at the time of arrest of accused to join the shopkeepers or passersby in the police proceedings. This failure on the part of prosecution creates reasonable doubts in the prosecution story," the court added.
According to the prosecution, the accused were arrested while they were unloading whisky bottles from a car on the night of May 23, 1997 in a West Delhi area.
The accused, in their defence, had told the court they had been falsely implicated and denied all allegations made against them.
