A Kerala court has granted bail to a man arrested and remanded to judicial custody for seven days for being in possession of 10 ml of alcohol and said that such incidents can happen only in a "banana republic" and not the world's greatest democracy.

Manjeri Sessions Court judge K Sanilkumar also rapped the investigating officer (IO) of the case for his "excessive and questionable" zeal.

The court said it was inclined to suspect the real motives of the IO in "entwining" the accused, "who is presumably from a socially and economically disadvantaged section of society", in a grave crime.

It was also of the view that the small quantity of the Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) found from the accused, a barber by profession, was probably kept there to be used as an aftershave for his customer

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