Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985

The Rajasthan High Court quashed a 1990 conviction for 8.5 kg of opium, holding that police who set out to search a shop and house needed a warrant or recorded grounds under Section 42 of the NDPS Act, even though the accused was caught on the road outside. The Court found the recovery proved and Section 50 complied with, but the Section 42 breach made the search void (paras 32, 48, 53-61).

Answering questions framed by a coordinate Bench, the Supreme Court held that once a Chemical Examiner finds morphine and meconic acid in seized poppy straw, it is covered by Section 2(xvii)(a) of the NDPS Act and no further test is needed to show that it came from papaver somniferum L. It set aside the Himachal Pradesh High Court's acquittal of a woman found with bags of poppy husk and remanded the appeal (paras 1, 89-95).

The Supreme Court set aside the Delhi High Court's grant of post-arrest bail to an accused in an NDPS case in which large quantities of psychotropic tablets were seized (paras 2, 5, 19). Section 67 confessions had to be kept aside after Tofan Singh, but the respondent's disclosures leading to a large recovery and call records linking the accused should have dissuaded the High Court (paras 16-17). Custody length or a filed charge-sheet is not by itself a ground for bail under Section 37 (para 18).

The Rajasthan High Court quashed a Special Judge's order releasing a vehicle seized by the Narcotics Control Bureau, holding that where the CrPC is inconsistent with the NDPS Act, Section 51 makes the NDPS Act prevail. The NCB may dispose of the vehicle under Section 52A, an interim measure that leaves the owner's rights to be decided in confiscation proceedings under Sections 60 to 63 (paras 7-10).

In the Narcotics Control Bureau's pending appeal, the Rajasthan High Court allowed its application to dispose of a car seized in 2012 under Section 52A of the NDPS Act. Section 52A is an interim measure of disposal, not confiscation, and does not prejudice the owner's rights under Sections 60 to 63; the proceeds stay with the NCB as custodian, and the 2015 notification applies to the earlier seizure (paras 15-18).

The Supreme Court dismissed West Bengal's appeal against bail granted to Rakesh Singh, accused under Section 27A of the NDPS Act of financing 76 grams of cocaine and having it planted in a car to frame two people out of a personal grudge. The charge-sheet's story contradicted the police complaint that the moving car was stopped and its occupants pointed out the drugs, giving reasonable grounds to doubt his complicity (paras 13-19).

The Supreme Court restored the acquittal of two men whom the Himachal Pradesh High Court had convicted for possessing 1.5 kg of charas (paras 1, 3, 11). The High Court had reappraised the evidence without dealing with the reasons that weighed with the Trial Court, although an acquittal reinforces the presumption of innocence and an appellate court must be "extremely slow" to interfere where two views are possible (paras 7-8).

The Rajasthan High Court allowed a criminal revision by two heroin accused and directed their release on bail under Section 167(2) CrPC (para 16). The Additional Sessions Judge had treated separate recoveries from four accused as joint possession of 760 grams, a commercial quantity (para 6). The High Court held that separate recoveries cannot be clubbed, so 200 grams each attracted the 60-day charge-sheet limit, and that the later charge-sheet did not defeat the right already exercised (paras 9-13).

In a revision by one of four heroin accused, the Rajasthan High Court set aside, as regards him, a Bhadra trial-court order refusing default bail and directed his release (para 16). The trial court had pooled what was found in the four accused's pockets and called the 760-gram total commercial (para 6). The High Court counted only the 200 grams found on the petitioner, applied the 60-day charge-sheet limit and held that the later charge-sheet did not defeat his claim (paras 9-13).

The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal against a ganja conviction in which the accused argued that offering him a third option of search by the officer himself, outside Section 50(1) of the NDPS Act, vitiated the recovery (paras 1, 4, 6). As the contraband was found in a polythene bag carried on a kanwad and "The recovery was not in person", the Court declined to extend the Section 50 principle to recoveries made otherwise (para 5).

The Supreme Court refused to cancel the bail of five NDPS accused whose arrests rested essentially on statements of themselves and co-accused under Section 67, which Tofan Singh makes inadmissible at trial; call records were left for trial (paras 9-10). But it cancelled the bail of one accused from whose rented flat commercial quantities were recovered, holding that he could not claim parity in the face of Section 37 (para 11).

The Supreme Court upheld a conviction for possessing 900 grams of smack found beneath the seat of a motorcycle stopped by a police patrol (paras 2-4, 19). It held that the seizure was "a chance recovery on a public road" governed by Section 43 of the NDPS Act, that Section 50 applies to a personal search and not to a vehicle, and that ownership of the motorcycle and non-production of the contraband did not help the accused (paras 11-15).