MADANLAL Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MADAN Lal, aged 30 years, a resident of village Nurpur Brahmana in police Sation Mahilpur, is the petitioner before me For being found in possession of 115 kilograms of crushed poppy-heads on the 21st of April, 1970, in the area of the said village, he was convicted by Shri H. L, Randcy, Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Hoshiarpnr. of an offence under Section 9 of the Opium Act. (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a year and a fine of Rs. 1, 000/-, the sentence in default of payment of line being rigorous imprisonment for six months. Againg the judgment of the learned Magistrate he filed an appeal which was dismissed by Shri S. S. Kalha, Sessions Judge, Hoshiarpur, on the 22nd of June, 1972, and that is why he has come up in revision to this Court.

(2.) THE prosecution case may be stated thus. On the 21st of April, 1970, Sub-Inspector Anokh Singh (P. W. 2) received secret information at police station Mahilpur that the petitioner was selling crushed poppy-heads in Panjpir Jhiri which lies within the revenue estate of village Nurpur. The Sub-Inspector organised a raiding party consisting of police officials including himself. After the Sub-Inspector had registered a case against the petitioner under Section 9 of the Act, the said party, headed by him, left the police station for the Jhiri on the way to which Jagga Singh (P. W. 1), who is a resident of Dhadha Khurdi and one Dial Singh were joined as members of the party at Mahilpur bus-stand. Or reaching the Jhiri the party found the petitioner sitting on a gunny bag containing 35 kilograms of crushed poppy-heads and having its mouth open. Two other bags were iying near-by and were also found to contain 40 kilograms of crushed poppy-heads each. A pair of scales and some weights were also found lying near-by. The petitioner was arrested and samples of the contents of the three bags were separately secured. These samples were found by the Chemical Examiner to be consisting of crushed poppy-heads.

(3.) AT the trial Jagga Singh (P. W. 1) and the Sub-Inspector supported the prosecution case in full but the truth of the same was denied by the petitioner who asserted that he had been arrested from his village and given a beating by the Sub-Inspector who later on falsely implicated him in this case. The two Courts below found the statements of the two prosecution witnesses to be fully reliable even though they suffered from some discrepancies which were considered to be of no importance. The non-production of Dial Singh, a nonofficial member of the raiding party, as a witness for the prosecution did not, according to the Courts below, militate against the veracity of the case set up by it which was not found to suffer from any improbabilities. It was in these premises that the petitioner was convicted and sentenced as aforesaid.