STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH Vs. SANJAY KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Aggrieved by the acquittal of the respondents of the offences punishable under Ss. 20 and 18 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (for short the 'ND&PS Act'), the State has filed the instant appeal.

(2.) The story of the prosecution, in brief, is that on 20/3/2010 at about 6:15 p.m., a secret information was received in Police Station, Banjar that in Rana Dhaba/Guest House at Banjar owned by the respondents, some persons are in possession of narcotics. The said information was entered in daily diary Ext. PW.1/A and the copy of the same was sent to Supervisory Officer. Thereafter, PW-10 Inspector Prem Dass formed a police party consisting of ASI Yashwant Singh, HC Ses Ram, PW-6 HC Chaman Lal PW-9 HC Ramesh Chand, HHC Dev Raj, PW-4 HHC Bhadur Singh, C Vijay Kumar and C Om Parkash and they proceeded towards Rana Dhaba / Guest House. At Bus Stand, the Investigating Officer associated PW-7 Naval Kishor and Kuldeep Singh as witnesses.

(3.) PW-10 Investigating Officer Prem Dass knocked the door of room No.2 on the third floor of the said Dhaba and the door was opened by the respondent Sanjay Kumar, and respondent Shubh Karan was found sitting on double bed, upon which a rucksack was also lying. Names and addresses of the respondents persons were ascertained. PW-10 Investigating Officer apprised the respondents of their legal right to be searched either before Magistrate or Gazetted Officer and the respondents consented to be searched by the police present on the spot vide memo Ext. PW.8/A, which bears signatures of the witnesses and the respondents. PW-10 thereafter gave his personal search to the respondents in presence of the witnesses vide memo Ext. PW.9/A and thereafter PW 10 Prem Dass checked the rucksack having three apartments upon which words "Samsnite/1910' were printed and from the middle apartment a red and yellow coloured packet containing six packets wrapped with cello tape was recovered. Out of six packets wrapped with cello tape, five packets were bigger in size and contained charas in round shape and sixth packet was small in size in which opium in brown liquid form was found. The charas was weighed and found to be 5 kg. 500 grams and the opium was found to be 150 grams.