Judgment Intelligence
Conviction Set AsideNadeem Ahamed vs. State of West Bengal
2025 INSC 993
SLP (Crl.) No(s). 9446-9447 of 2025
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Date of Decision
- 5 August 2025
- Bench
- Justice Aravind Kumar, Justice Sandeep Mehta
- Relevant Acts & Sections
- Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 -- Sections 21(c), 29 and 52A; Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 -- Section 374(2)
Final Outcome
Appeals allowed; the conviction and sentence were quashed and set aside. The appellant was acquitted of the charges and ordered released from custody forthwith, if not wanted in any other case (paras 33-35).
Five key highlights
- Quantities individually recovered from two accused cannot be clubbed into a 'commercial quantity' without positive proof of conspiracy -- mere joint apprehension is only suspicion, not evidence (paras 22-25).
- Drawing only one sample per packet, instead of the duplicate required by the 1989 Standing Order, is a serious departure from the mandatory sampling procedure (para 28(a)).
- Total non-compliance with Section 52A -- no samples drawn before a Magistrate, no certified inventory -- struck at the root of the prosecution's case (paras 29-30).
- With the sampling process discredited, the FSL report lost evidentiary value and could not be read in evidence, leaving no proof the substance was heroin (paras 31-32).
- A High Court dismissing an appeal solely on delay, without considering merits, was held unjustified where the appellant was in custody and could not afford to file on time (paras 19-20).
Brief Facts
Nadeem Ahamed was convicted under Sections 21(c) and 29 of the NDPS Act after 125 grams of heroin was found on him and 130 grams on a co-accused, together treated as commercial quantity. The trial court sentenced him to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and a Rs. 1,00,000 fine. The Calcutta High Court refused to condone a 1,183-day delay and dismissed his appeal without considering it on merits.
Court's Findings
The Court held the High Court's delay-only dismissal was too harsh given the appellant's custody and indigence, and proceeded to decide the appeal on its own merits rather than remand it back (paras 19-20). Clubbing the two accused's individual quantities into a commercial quantity was unjustified: walking together and being searched one after another does not prove conspiracy or prior knowledge of each other's contraband (paras 21-25). Separately, the sampling process was fatally flawed -- only one sample was drawn per packet instead of the required duplicate, the accused's signatures were missing from sample labels, and there was total non-compliance with Section 52A's Magistrate-certified inventory requirement (paras 26-30). With the FSL report unusable, no admissible evidence proved the substance was heroin (paras 31-32).
Legal Principle
Contraband recovered individually from two accused cannot be clubbed to meet the commercial-quantity threshold absent proof of conspiracy; joint apprehension is only suspicion. Separately, a single sample instead of a duplicate, and total non-compliance with Section 52A certification, together render an FSL report unfit for evidence (paras 25, 29-31).
