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Showing contexts for: sampling procedures in Ganesan vs The Intelligence Officer on 7 March, 2024Matching Fragments
11.Plea of the non-compliance of Secton 52A of the NDPS Act caused failure of justice.
11.1.The conjoined reading of Sections 41 to 44, 55 and 57 of the NDPS Act, shows that every authorised officer from the jurisdictional https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis Police Station, the department of Central Excise, Narcotic Customs, Revenue Intelligence or any other department of Central Government etc., has reason to believe from personal knowledge or information given by any person and the same was reduced in writing that any Narcotic drug or Psychotropic substances or controlled substance in respect of which, offence punishable under this Act has been committed, they are entitled to search and seize the contraband. They are called “seizure officer”. They shall arrest the accused and produce the accused along with seized contraband to his immediate Superior of nearest police station or officer empowered under Section 53 of the Act. The said officers shall take necessary measure as may be necessary for the disposal, as per Section 52 of the Act. The said report shall be made within 48 hours from the time of either arrest or seizure. Under Section 55, the officer in charge of police station shall take charge of the contraband and keep in safe custody pending orders of the Magistrate. He also shall allow the said seizure officer to take sample of such contraband and seal the said sample with seal of officer in charge of Police Station. The Central Government issued a notification with guidelines to follow the procedure to take the sample from the recovered https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis contraband and to keep the remaining contraband.
“9. Learned counsel for the respondent-18/58
https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis accused relied on certain standing orders and standing instructions issued by the Central Government under Section 52-A(1) which require a particular procedure to be followed for drawing of samples and contended that since this procedure had not been followed, the entire trial was vitiated.
11.5.Before the implementation of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (Seizure, Storage, Sampling and disposal) Rules https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis 2022 which commenced from 23 December 2022, not even Section 52A of the NDPS Act demanded taking of samples at the spot. The Notification No.1/1989 prescribed procedure to take samples, seizure and the disposal. The authorities has strictly followed the procedure during the course of taking samples, seizure and produced before the Court.
11.8.Both the directions relate to the procedure to be followed after the seizure. The said direction was issued on finding that there was no https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis compliance of the procedure of taking sample at the occurrence place at the time of the seizure as per the Central Government Notification No. 1/1989. Therefore, the intention of the guidelines issued by the Hon'ble Supreme Court is that in case of failure to take sample and to prove the case of the seizure, the prosecution has final opportunity to produce the entire contraband and take the sample in the presence of the learned Judicial Magistrate upon making the application and cause destruction of the contraband. From the above, it is clear that the compliance of the above direction issued by the Mohanlal Case No.II, to take inventory is the post seizure procedure to prevent the recirculation of the contraband. In the said circumstances, in the case wherever the contraband was seized after taking the samples as per the Notification No.1/1989 and forwarded to the competent officer as per Section 52 and the accused along with the seized contraband are produced before the competent Court and the competent Court received the contraband and issued a direction to keep the contraband in proper custody and the same has been properly supervised and the same has been also produced before the trial Court at the time of the trial as a material object, as a physical evidence, the same cannot be brushed aside on the ground that the investigating agency https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis violated the second part of the direction of the Mohanlal Case No.II, by not disposing of the seized contraband by making the application under Section 52A of NDPS Act.