AMAR PUN Vs. STATE OF GOA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant herein is the accused, who takes exception to judgment dated 12. 8. 2008 of the Learned Special Judge, Mapusa, convicting and sentencing him under section 20 (b) (ii) (C) of the Narcotic drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. The accused was charged and tried with allegation that when a raid was conducted on 24. 4. 2007 at about 12. 00 hours on the basis of prior information, the accused was found in illegal possession of 1. 555 grams of charas. The case of the accused is that he was falsely implicated.

(2.) TO prove the charge against the accused prosecution has examined eight witnesses, out of which five were police witnesses, including the officer who conducted the raid, and two were panch witnesses. The second pancha witness was examined presumably because the first pancha witness did not support the panchanama with reference to all the details mentioned therein. The raid was conducted by P. S. I. Sandhya Gupta/pw8 in presence of P. I. Shri Ashish Shirodkar/pw7.

(3.) THE Learned Special Judge, after considering the evidence produced by the prosecution came to the conclusion that the oral as well as documentary evidence produced by the prosecution proved that the accused was found in illegal possession of commercial quantity of charas. The Learned Special Judge further held that the contemporaneous documents produced by the prosecution supported the entire process of raid, search and seizure and the prosecution had also taken sufficient steps to rule out the possibility of tampering with the sealed article. The Learned Special Judge concluded that the substance found in possession of the accused when tested in the laboratory was found to contain charas and once the prosecution had proved that the accused was found in possession of the seized articles, presumption under section 54 read with section 35 of the said Act followed and thus it was for the accused to rebut with sufficient material the said presumption which the accused had failed to, and, as such the Learned Special Judge proceeded to hold the accused guilty under section 20 (b) (ii) (C) of the said Act and sentenced him to undergo R. I. for ten years and pay a fine of Rs. 1,00,000/- in default to undergo R. I. for six months.