Section 52A

The Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur refused a second bail plea over 7 kg 96 g of opium milk, a pistol and five cartridges allegedly recovered from a car at night (paras 7, 17, 19). The seizure officer's evidence showed that the tip-off, received after sunset, was written down and sent to superior officers, with reasons recorded for searching without a warrant (para 11). Following the Supreme Court, a speedy-trial plea could not dilute Section 37 (para 15).

The Supreme Court has acquitted two men convicted under the NDPS Act, holding that the prosecution failed to prove the seized substance was charas. The forensic report was discarded because the chain of custody of the samples was broken, including an unexplained five-day gap, and no other admissible evidence identified the substance.

The Supreme Court held that the power to confiscate a vehicle seized in an NDPS case lies with the court trying the offence under Section 63(1), not with the Drug Disposal Committee, which may dispose of a conveyance only with the court's permission (paras 11-12, 14). It ordered the release of a lorry whose occupants had been acquitted, setting aside the orders refusing release (paras 16-17).

The Supreme Court upheld a ten-year sentence under Section 15(c) of the NDPS Act for about 200 kg of poppy husk found in a car. It held that an officer who received a tip-off at a naka, recorded its substance in the ruqa sent to the police station before the search, and summoned the DSP to supervise it, substantially complied with Section 42. Section 50 did not apply because nothing was recovered from the personal search (paras 33, 36, 52).

The Supreme Court upheld a 1997 NDPS conviction for 100 grams of smack found in a water bottle, but reduced the sentence from 14 years to the 10-year minimum under the unamended Section 21. Section 50 did not apply to a search of a bottle the accused was carrying, and drawing samples without a Magistrate was only a procedural irregularity under Section 52A. The 2001 amendment did not help, as the trial had ended before it (paras 13, 15-16, 18-20).

The Rajasthan High Court suspended the ten-year sentence of a Jaipur medical-store owner convicted under the NDPS Act, finding prima facie that the samples sent for testing were not drawn before a Magistrate under Section 52A (paras 9, 11-12). Because the same police constable was shown present at two searches during overlapping times, it asked the Director General of Police to inquire (paras 15, 17).

The Rajasthan High Court granted bail to an accused in a 248 kg poppy husk case despite the Section 37 bar, finding prima facie non-compliance with the NDPS (Seizure, Storage, Sampling and Disposal) Rules, 2022: the sample sent for chemical examination was drawn by the police at the spot, not in the presence of a Magistrate, and the bags were neither homogenised nor marked (paras 15-19, 24-28).

The Supreme Court dismissed a woman's appeal against her NDPS conviction for 23.5 kg of ganja. Drawing samples at the spot rather than before a Magistrate under Section 52A is not fatal where the seal, identity and chain of custody of the samples are intact, as held in Bharat Aambale, and the statutory minimum sentence for a commercial quantity left no room to reduce it (paras 23-32).

The Rajasthan High Court refused bail to an engineering student from whose hostel room 0.31 gram of LSD on blotter papers and 6.1 gram of ganja were allegedly recovered. Taking into account that the quantity as alleged was commercial, the Section 37 NDPS bar, and a Bombay High Court Full Bench ruling that the blotter paper is part of the LSD and counts towards its weight, the Court dismissed the application without commenting on the merits (paras 3, 5-6).

The Supreme Court set aside a Bombay High Court order sending an NDPS ganja case back for retrial because the raid video was not explained by each witness, the chemical examiner was not examined and the seized ganja was not produced. Retrial is for exceptional cases; the video had a Section 65B certificate, the analyst's report is admissible under Section 293 CrPC, and non-production is not always fatal (paras 16-34).

The Supreme Court has acquitted a man convicted of possessing heroin, holding that two accused persons' individually recovered quantities cannot be clubbed into a 'commercial quantity' without proof of conspiracy, and that a complete failure to follow Section 52A sampling procedure left the FSL report unusable. It also held the High Court wrong to refuse the appeal over delay alone.

The Rajasthan High Court set aside a Special Judge's refusal to have a fresh sample of seized MDMA tested. The accused said the sample sent to the laboratory did not come from the contraband in the maalkhana; holding that a fair trial includes verifying such evidence, the Court directed a Magistrate to draw 10 grams from the remaining 380 grams for the FSL, which must report within 30 days (paras 13, 21, 27-28).