Information Received on Patrol Need Not Be Recorded Before Acting Under Section 42 NDPS, Supreme Court Holds

On 10 October 1993, a head constable learnt that a man was selling injectable drugs near the Blue Tronics Junction, Palluruthy, and passed the information to the sub-inspector, whom he met on patrol (paras 2, 4). The police party went at once and found the appellant with a packet containing 25 ampoules of Tidigesic, a Buprenorphine preparation, and three syringes (paras 2, 4). The trial court acquitted him for discrepancies in the evidence, but the High Court convicted him under Section 21 of the NDPS Act and sentenced him to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh (paras 1, 3-4).

The Court said provisions of the Act that courts treat as mandatory must be examined with a pragmatic approach and should not be read "so literally so as to render its compliance, impossible" (para 6). If strictly following the mandate would delay the trap and let the accused escape, the prosecution case should not be thrown out (para 6). Here the information reached the sub-inspector while he was on patrol in a jeep, and had the police not acted immediately the appellant would have escaped, so no violation of Section 42 could be inferred (para 7). On Section 50, the witnesses and the seizure mahazar showed that the appellant was orally informed of his right and opted out, and the Baldev Singh Constitution Bench upholds oral communication (paras 9-10). Section 57 is not mandatory, and sending the FIR and the arrest and seizure records to the superior immediately was substantial compliance that caused no prejudice (paras 12-13).