Seized Opium Not Linked to Tested Sample: Supreme Court Acquits Man Sentenced to 15 Years Under NDPS Act

The appellant was convicted under Sections 8 and 15 of the NDPS Act for carrying 10 kg of opium in a plastic flour packet, and sentenced to 15 years with a fine of Rs 1,50,000 (opening paragraph, para 2); the High Court upheld the conviction (para 10). The seizure took place at 06.40 am at his doorstep, and all the witnesses were police officials (paras 2, 5). Before the Supreme Court he alleged false implication, the absence of independent witnesses in a residential locality, non-compliance with Section 50 and failure to prove that the sample in court was the one seized; the State relied on his two previous NDPS convictions (paras 3-4).

It was hard to believe that the police could not find a single independent witness in a rural residential locality, and no one who declined was named (para 5). The High Court treated police testimony as sufficient Section 50 compliance despite the absence of any recovery memo prepared at the time of the search (para 5). Although a laboratory report was obtained, the identity of the sample was never conclusively established (para 5). The trial court itself noted the miserable condition of the malkhanas, the low-quality packet and the illegible ink, yet treated the failure to identify the sample as inconsequential, and the High Court did not deal with the point at all (para 6). An earlier conviction may matter for sentence but is not a ground for conviction (para 6). Following Mohan Lal, the reverse burden does not relieve the prosecution of first proving its case beyond reasonable doubt (para 7). Failure to relate the sample tested to the sample seized is no different from failure to produce the sample itself, as Vijay Jain and Ashok show (paras 8-9).