STATE OF H P Vs. RAJU ALIAS MOHD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) State is in appeal against the judgment of acquittal, dated 3.4.1996, passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Kullu, District Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, whereby the respon-dents, herein, who shall hereinafter be re-ferred to as the accused, were tried for the offence under Section 20 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (in short 'the Act'), were ultimately acquitted.

(2.) Briefly stated, the facts of the prosecu-tion case are that on 5.7.1994 at about 4.30 p.m. SI Shayam Lal (PW11), who at the rel-evant point of time, was Additional S.H.O., Police Station, Kullu, was present at Sarbari Bazar on patrol duty alongwith Inspector Shayam Lal and H.C. Bhupender Pal of State C.I.D., Kullu, LHC Pritam Chand and Constable Amar Chand of Police Station, Kullu, received secret information to the effect that accused Raju @ Ali Mohammad was finalizing a deal of charas at his resi-dence with some businessman of Delhi and in case the residential premises of the said accused were searched immediately, it could lead to recovery of a huge quantity of cha-ras. In the given circumstances, search war-rant could not be obtained for the reason that in such an event, there was every like-lihood of the contraband being removed or concealed and evidence of the offence de-stroyed. At this juncture, a rukha was pre- pared and sent to the Police Station through Constable Amar Chand. Simultaneously, Dy. S.P. Kullu was also requested to visit the spot. Thereafter S.I. Shayam Lai, accom-panied by other Police Officials, proceeded to the spot. On the way, independent wit-nesses, namely Amlindu Sharma and Prem Chand were also joined in the raiding party. In the meantime, Dy. S.P. K.K. Indoria, also reached the spot. On reaching there, S.I. Shayam Lai knocked the door of the pre-mises of Al Raju @ Ali Mohammad in the presence of witnesses and Dy. S.P. K.K. Indoria. The door was opened by Al Raju @ Ali Mohammad. Two other persons were found sitting in the room. On being con-fronted, the accused disclosed their identity to the Investigating Officer as Al Raju @ Ali Mohammad, A2 Pritam Kumar and A3 Raj Kumar. They also gave their addresses and other particulars to the police. All the three accused were apprised about the se-cret information with regard to the alleged contraband, i.e. charas, in their possession and they were told that the room was re-quired to be searched for that purpose. Thereafter, the search followed. It led to recovery of charas, kept in a polythene packet. The recovered contraband was weighed and found to be 2 kilo 100 grams out of which a sample weighing 50 grams was taken out for chemical analysis. The bulk and sample were separately sealed in two parcels with seal, bearing impression 'N'. The seal used, during the proceedings, was stated to have been handed over to the independent witness, namely Prem Chand. The recovered contraband and sample was taken into possession by the Police vide memo Ex. PW10/A, on which signatures of the independent witnesses were also ob-tained besides that of Dy. S.P. K.K. Indoria. After completion of other procedural for-malities on the spot, the Police Party re-turned to the Police Station. There, the case property comprising of the parcels, contain-ing the bulk of recovered charas and sample thereof were deposited with PW7, Inspec-tor Paras Ram, who resealed both the par-cels with seal, bearing impression'X'.

(3.) The sample of the recovered contra-band was sent for analysis to CTL, Kandaghat and report, Ex. PA was obtained, which revealed that the sample contained contents of charas.