MOHAMMAD ASHRAF Vs. STATE OF H.P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant hereinafter referred to as ˜the accused was convicted by the learned trial Court under Section 20 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 in short the Act - for allegedly keeping in his possession resin content of 80.5 grams of cannabis plant (charas) in the recovered stuff of 350 grams, as such he was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of five months and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/ - and in default of payment of fine, he was further ordered to undergo simple imprisonment of one month.

(2.) SINCE the accused had already in custody for more than six months therefore, the period already undergone by him was ordered to be set -off under Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

(3.) IN brief, the prosecution case as emerges from the evidence on record can be put thus. On 4.12.2009 at about 4.45 p.m. PW8 S.I. Liaq Ram Sasodia was heading a police patrol -party consisting of PW1 ASI Bahadur Singh, PW2 Nand Lal, PW3 Bhupinder Singh and constables Kulbir and Mohinder. Police patrol party travelled in the Government vehicle towards Sai Road, Baddi. Its entry was made in the rapat Ext. PW6/F and started checking the vehicles. In the meantime, accused came on a motor cycle bearing registration No. HP12 -C -4312, from the side of Amarwati Apartments. He was also stopped. On seeing the police present on the spot, he got perplexed which raised suspicion. Getting suspicious PW8 S.I. Liaq Ram conducted the search and recovered a packet from the jacket worn by the accused which contained 350 grams of stuff in the shape of sticks, wrapped in a polythene packet. On having identified the substance as charas, a memo Ext. PW1 /A was prepared. Police also recovered the weights of 10 gm. and 20 gm along with scale from the possession of the accused. The whole recovered stuff was sealed in one packet at five places with seal producing the impression of English letter ˜P. Weights and scale were also separately sealed with the same seal at five places.