NAFE SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This criminal appeal has been preferred against the judgment and order dated 18.04.1991, passed by VIth Additional Sessions Judge, Gorakhpur, in Sessions Trial No. 553 of 1987, convicting the accused-appellant for the offence under Sections 20, 23 N.D.P.S. Act and sentencing him to undergo ten years rigorous imprisonment for the offence under each section along with fine of Rs. 1,00,000/- in each section and in default of fine one year additional rigorous imprisonment. It has further been directed that all the sentences will run concurrently.

(2.) Brief facts of the case as disclosed in the complaint and recovery memo is that on 20.04.1987, the Custom Inspector, Gorakhpur namely Sri Suresh Singh got information at 08:00 P.M. that a person is coming from Nepal with Nepali Charas on 20/21.04.1987 and will reach at Gorakhpur Railway Station in in the mid night. Custom Inspector Suresh Singh along with Rajesh Kumar Singh (Custom Inspector) and two Constables R.B. Ram and R.C. Tripathi reached at the station at about 10:00 P.M. At about 12.:30 in the mid night, a truck stopped in front of railway station coming from the side of Gorakhnath and a person with a wallet stepped down from the truck. On inquiry by the Custom Inspector and his team, the person revealed his address and name. Thereupon, he was taken to the Regional Office, Custom Department, Gorakhpur. There, the Custom Inspector himself, before independent witnesses, conducted search in person of the accused and from his wallet, 21 rolls with two broken pieces of Charas were recovered. On being asked, he disclosed him name to be Nafe Singh son of Balwant Singh, resident of Badari old Delhi and he voluntarily confessed that after purchasing the Charas from Nepal, he was going to sell the same in Delhi. Because there was no weighing machine, therefore, the recovered Charas was delivered in the custody of Guard/witness Nanhku Ram deputed there and the Custom Inspector and other witnesses went back.

(3.) In the morning, at about 07:00 A.M., they came back in the office and took the recovered Charas to Shiv Mishthan Bhandar where on being weighed, the Charas was found to be 1 Kg. and 350 gms. The recovered Charas was sealed in a clothe and sample was also taken . The memo of recovery which was started to be written in the night itself but because, the Charas was not being weighed by that time, the memo was completed after weighing the same in the morning. The memo was written by Ganga Singh on the dictation of Custom Inspector Suresh Singh. On the basis of recovery, Custom Inspector Rajesh Kumar Singh filed a complaint in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gorakhpur from where the case was committed to the court of sessions.