KULWANT SINGH @ KANTI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Vide this judgment, I propose to dispose of two appeals i.e. CRA-S-2154-SB-2004 filed by appellant Kulwant Singh @ Kanti and CRA-S-2189-SB-2004 filed by appellant Shamsher Singh @ Bulla, both of them being accused, who were tried and convicted by the Court of Judge, Special Court, Barnala vide judgment dated 4.9.2004 for an offence under Section 15 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') and vide order of the same date, they were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for ten years each and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,00,000/- each and in default thereof to further undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months each.

(2.) The accused-convicts, who are appellants before this Court pray that the appeals be accepted, the impugned judgment of their conviction and order of sentence be set aside and they be acquitted of the charge framed against them.

(3.) Briefly stated, the prosecution story is that on 10.5.2002 a police party from Police Station Mehal Kalan headed by SI Gurmukh Singh (hereinafter referred to as the Investigating Officer/I.O.) had received a secret information that truck bearing No.PB-04-2123 loaded with bags of salt and poppy husk was to come from the said of Barnala with Kulwant Singh as its driver and Shamsher Singh @ Bulla as cleaner and on receipt of the said information, the Investigating Officer had sent ruqa to the police station for registration of the FIR and thereafter the police party travelling in official vehicle was going to put picket near Nihalu Wala High Way; DSP, Barnala was requested to reach the spot as DSP Mehal Kalan was not available; when the police party had reached near Gurdwara Sahib of Mehal Kalan, they came across Gurnam Singh, who was joined with the police party; near bus stand of Mehal Kalan, another police party headed by SI Paramjit Singh was present; both the police parties had joined hands; while holding picket near Nihalu Wala Highway, Sh.Ashok Bath, DSP came there along with his gunman; at about 4:00 a.m., a truck No.PB-04-2123 was spotted coming from the side of Barnala; it was signalled to stop with the help of torch light; the truck came to a halt; it was being driven by Kulwant Singh with Shamsher Singh as Cleaner, however, both of them after alighting from the truck succeeded in running away; accused were however, identified by ASI Malkiat Singh and Gurnam Singh; the truck was checked at the asking of DSP and it was found to be loaded with 421 plastic bags of salt and 14 bags of poppy husk; two samples of 250 gms. each were drawn from each plastic bag and converted into parcels; on being weighed, the residue in each bag came out to 38 kgs. 500 gms. of poppy husk; the samples and bags containing residue poppy husk were sealed with seal of the Investigating Officer and seal of the DSP; the sample parcels, residue parcels along with plastic bags containing salt besides the truck in question were taken into police possession; registration certificate of the truck along with billties recovered from the truck were also seized vide recovery memo; rough site plan of the place of recovery was prepared; on return to the police station, the case property was produced before SHO Amarjit Singh, who checked the same and verified the investigation; SHO put his own seal on the case property having impression 'AS'; specimen seal impression was prepared and then SHO Amarjit Singh deposited the case property with MHC Gurtej Singh. On 22.5.2002, when the police party was present near bus stand Gangor, then both the accused found to be present there and they were apprehended; they were arrested in accordance with law, preparing requisite documents, thereafter, the accused along with the case property were produced before the Magistrate; statements of witnesses were recorded; during the course of investigation sample parcels were sent to the office of FSL, Punjab and as per report received therefrom those were found to be that of poppy husk.