Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Mushaque Ahammed @ Muthu vs The Sub Inspector Of Police on 9 December, 2020
Bench: L. Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta, Ajay Rastogi
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 844 OF 2020
(Arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 3544 of 2020)
MUSHAQUE AHAMMED @ MUTHU & ANR.
Appellant(s)
VERSUS
THE SUB INSPECTOR OF POLICE & ANR.
Respondent(s)
O R D E R
Leave granted.
The appellants are convicted under Section 20(b)
(ii)(C) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (hereinafter referred to as ‘NDPS Act’ for brevity) and sentenced to imprisonment for 12 years and they were directed to pay a fine of Rs.1 lakh. The High Court upheld the conviction and sentenced the first appellant to 10 years and the second appellant to 5 years and reduced the fine to Rs.50,000/-.
Ganja was seized from a car at 13:25 hrs on 19.06.2018 by the Inspector of Police. The quantity of Ganja seized from the exclusive possession of the first Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by appellant is 20.500 kilograms and 18.500 kilograms from Nidhi Ahuja Date: 2020.12.14 19:11:14 IST Reason: the possession of the second appellant. 1 CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 844/ 2020 (@ SLP (Crl.) No. 3544/ 2020) Mr. Ragenth Basant, learned counsel appearing for the appellants, submitted that the Ganja was found in 10 bags and samples have not been taken from each bag, which is in violation of Section 52-B of the NDPS Act. He made a reference to the judgment of this Court reported in Gaunter Edwin Kircher v. State of Goa, Secretariat Panaji, Goa (1993) 3 SCC 145, Union of India v. Mohanlal and Another (2016) 3 SCC 379, apart from the decision of the Delhi High Court reported in Basant Rai v. State (2012) SCC Online Del 3319 to argue that it is mandatory for samples to be drawn from the packets separately.
The point argued by Mr. Basant has not been raised before the Courts below. The appellants have not even made a suggestion in their cross examination of the witnesses about some of the bags not containing ganja. The High Court found that the charge of conspiracy between the first and the second appellant was not made out. The Court also found that the second appellant was in possession of intermediate quantity of Ganja and not commercial quantity and reduced the sentence to five years.
After carefully considering the entire material on record and the submissions of Mr. Basant we are of the 2 CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 844/ 2020 (@ SLP (Crl.) No. 3544/ 2020) view that the judgment of the High Court does not warrant interference. The appeal is dismissed.
…………………………………………………………………., J. [ L. NAGESWARA RAO ] …………………………………………………………………., J. [ HEMANT GUPTA ] …………………………………………………………………., J. [ AJAY RASTOGI ] New Delhi;
December 09, 2020.
3 CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 844/ 2020 (@ SLP (Crl.) No. 3544/ 2020) ITEM NO.5 Court 5 (Video Conferencing) SECTION II-B S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No. 3544/2020 (Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 21-05- 2020 in CRLA No. 30/2020 passed by the High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam) MUSHAQUE AHAMMED @ MUTHU & ANR. Petitioner(s) VERSUS THE SUB INSPECTOR OF POLICE & ANR. Respondent(s) (FOR ADMISSION and I.R. and IA No.72378/2020-EXEMPTION FROM FILING C/C OF THE IMPUGNED JUDGMENT and IA No.72379/2020- EXEMPTION FROM FILING O.T. and IA No.72380/2020-EXEMPTION FROM FILING AFFIDAVIT) Date : 09-12-2020 This petition was called on for hearing today. CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE L. NAGESWARA RAO HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT GUPTA HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY RASTOGI For Petitioner(s) Mr. Raghenth Basant, Adv.
Mr. M. F. Philip, Adv.
Ms. Mahamaya Chaterjee, Adv.
Ms. Sonali Jain, Adv.
Ms. Liz Mathew, AOR For Respondent(s) Ms. Priyanka Prakash, Adv.
Ms. Beena Prakash, Adv.
Mr. G. Prakash, AOR UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R Leave granted.
The appeal is dismissed in terms of the signed order.
Pending applications stand disposed of.
(NIDHI AHUJA) (ANAND PRAKASH)
AR-cum-PS BRANCH OFFICER
[Signed order is placed on the file.] 4