BHAGWAN SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is the same stereo-typed story again. The Police Officer receives secret information, forms a raiding party, lays a picket, nabs the accused, recovers smack, takes out the sample, prepares separate parcels, applies the seals and writes down the necessary memos. Only the characters have changed. The accused this time is Bhagwan Singh. The alleged recovery is 900 grams of Charas. For a chanrge a person from the public was also joined in the raiding party but later given up allegedly on the ground of having been won over.

(2.) The learned Additional Sessions Judge has held the accused guilty under Section 21 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. As for me I find myself unconvinced. The reasons are as under:

(3.) The Investigating Officer, Sub-Inspector Prithi Singh, tells us that the C.F.S.L. Form was filled in and that the case property was got deposited with the Moharir Malkhana by Constable Mohan Singh (Public Witness -6). However, he nowhere says that the C.F.S.L. Form was also handed over to the said Constable for getting the same deposited and/or that he had himself or through someone else got it deposited with the Moharir Malkhana. Even the extract of the Register of the Moharir Malkhana (Ex. Public Witness 2/A) nowhere speaks of deposit of the said Form either through Constable Mohan Singh or through anyone else. There is also no entry in the said Register that when the sample parcel was sent to the C.F.S.L. the Form too was sent. Even Constable Balwan Singh (Public Witness -1) who deposited the sample parcel with the C.F.S.L. says nothing about the C.F.S.L. Form. He neither says that the said Form was handed over to him nor that it was delivered by him at the C.F.S.L. Absence of evidence with regard to the C.F.S.L. Form benefits the accused. I say so on the basis of the judgments reported as Chameli Devi v. State, 1993 0 JCC 293-,Anup Joshi v. State, 1992 (2) C.C. Cases 314 and Abdul Gaffar v. The State, 1996 JCC 497=l (1996) CCR 478.