SHYAM SUNDER SONI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It has been a long wait for the Counsel for the appellant. He did not appear day before yesterday. He did not appear even yesterday. There has been no sign of him even today. Leaving him to his conscience and his God I am proceeding to dispose of his appeal as, I feel, any further delay would only add to the agony of the appellant.

(2.) THE story is as it usually is in all such cases. A secret information is received, a raiding party is formed and witnesses from the public are approached. One of them obliges. The suspect is interrogated and a notice is given under Section 50 of the NDPS Act (hereinafter called the Act). This is followed by search and to the recovery is made leading to preparation of documents like recovery memos, personal search memos, taking out of the sample and putting the sample and the remaining drug recovered into separate parcels. In this case the witness from the public is Laxmi Narain. The alleged recovery is of 10 kgs. and 100 grams of charas from the holdall of the appellant. The learned Additional Sessions Judge convicted the appellant. I am acquitting. Here are the reason.

(3.) YET another reason which prompts me not to believe the prosecution version as Gospal truth is the report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory. It is typewritten with some over writings with hand. The more pertinent is the over writting with pen with regard to the seals on the parcels received. No body has proved as to who made those cuttings and overwriting and whether those were authorised or not. The officer who made the report has not entered into the witness box and the Investigating Officer who has tendered it in evidence said not a word to authenticate them.