Justice, as we are often told, is blind. In Jharkhand last week, it also appeared to be distinctly toothy.
A Ranchi district court acquitted an accused in a ganja case after the police informed it that the 200 kilos of seized marijuana had been eaten by rats. Not lost. Not destroyed in a fire. Not misplaced during transit. Not even missing. Just eaten. By rats.
One must pause here. Not in disbelief. But, in admiration. Two hundred kilos is not a snack. It is an operation. If rats can polish off such quantities, perhaps they deserve to be declared an endangered species and sent for de-addiction counselling.
The court being a court had little choice. Evidence must be produced. When evidence disappears into rodent stomachs, the law cannot summon it back for cross-examination. Rodent snouts, alas, are not admissible witnesses.
This is not the first time our justice system has been tested by animals, weather, or other forces of nature. Over the years, we have heard of liquor destroyed by “leakage”, seized cash mysteriously “washed away” in floods, and vital records eaten by termites who, like these rats, seem to have a special appetite for official documents.
In Jharkhand, rodents appear to have gone a step further. Before they were accused of consuming narcotics, rats in Dhanbad were blamed for drinking hundreds of bottles of liquor stored by traders. In July 2025, liquor traders in Jharkhand unable to explain missing stocks of Indian Made Foreign Liquor accused rats of drinking from about 800 bottles.
Bizarre as it may sound, the Dhanbad rodents clearly keep a rolling menu of contraband. In an earlier case , a district court in early 2024 was told that rats had feasted on 10 kilos of cannabis and nine kilos of ganja kept inside a police station itself. The absence of the confiscated material once again proved helpful to the accused, reinforcing the impression that these rodents are not just persistent, but legally consequential.
Elsewhere too, rats have enjoyed remarkable legal immunity. In 2023 Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura, police once claimed that rats had eaten over 500 kilos of seized marijuana. And in a rare moment of accountability 2022, a rat in Madhya Pradesh was reportedly arrested for drinking alcohol kept inside a police station. This, one assumes, was done to send a strong message to the rest of the rodent community, though the accused was later released on what may best be described as unconditional bail. The decision suggested that these creatures have gradually broadened their tastes, from paperwork to alcohol and now to drugs.
Before we comfort ourselves by saying ‘only in India’, it is worth noting that justice gets nibbled elsewhere too. In the United States, police departments have admitted that rats became addicted to drugs stored as evidence, repeatedly chewing through packaging and contaminating entire stockpiles. Even in Houston in 2024, police admitted that rats were chewing through sealed evidence bags and feeding on seized narcotics stored for years, prompting officials to warn courts that some drug evidence may have been compromised. In a developed justice system too, it turned out, the chain of custody was no match for rodents with time, teeth and access.
The police version in the most recent Ranchi case , naturally, raises several questions. Where were these rats when the seizures were made? Did they work alone or in syndicates? Were they first-time offenders or repeat consumers? And most importantly, why do they always get away while humans do not?
More seriously, what does all this say about a system where the chain of custody is so fragile that a few rodents can dismantle it completely?
To be fair, the judiciary did what it is meant to do. It followed procedure. It asked for proof. Proof was unavailable. The accused walked free. Justice, in the narrow legal sense, was served.
But somewhere between the malkhana (police storage facility) and the courtroom, common sense appears to have been eaten alive.
In the end, the only clear winners are the rats. They consumed contraband. They allegedly drank the liquor. They began with a harmless nibble and ended with a full-blown feast. They were occasionally arrested to satisfy the paperwork. They still escaped without a lasting charge. Once again, they showed how institutions collapse not with scandal or outrage, but with a straight face and an unbelievable explanation.
In a country where justice moves slowly, it is comforting to know that rats, at least, get things done.
(Views are personal)
