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Supreme Court bolsters anti-narcotics law
Setting aside the Himachal Pradesh HC judgment and laying down the precedent for all high courts on Thursday, the Supreme Court bench held that the interpretation adopted by high court would be a violence to the legislative intent and the fight against the drug menace.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday removed an anomaly in law that could shield an accused from punishment under the 1985 Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act just because a particular variety of plant is not used in the offence, strengthening anti-narcotics law of the country.
A bench led by justice BR Gavai ruled that a positive test for the contents of morphine and meconic acid is sufficient for a conviction in relation to poppy straw and opium, adding that it is not required to prove that the confiscated material is a part of papaver somniferum L plant.
“Once it is established that the seized poppy straw tests positive for the contents of morphine and meconic acid, no other test would be necessary for bringing home the guilt of the accused under Section 15 of the 1985 Act,” said the bench, which also included justice CT Ravikumar. Section 15 prescribes punishment up to 20 years in jail for producing, possessing, trafficking or dealing with poppy straw.
The question of law before the top court was if the prosecution for offences relating to poppy straw and opium must depend on whether the plant of the species papaver somniferum L has been used in the offence because the NDPS Act mentions only this species of plant as opium poppy.
The Himachal Pradesh high court, in a 2007 judgment, acquitted an accused on the ground that the prosecution failed to establish that materials recovered from them consisted of the plant of the papaver somniferum L. It further noted that since the central government had notified only this species as the opium poppy, any other plant cannot entail a conviction under the NDPS Act. A similar view was taken by several other high courts.
Setting aside the Himachal Pradesh HC judgment and laying down the precedent for all high courts on Thursday, the Supreme Court bench held that the interpretation adopted by high court would be a violence to the legislative intent and the fight against the drug menace.
“If the construction as adopted in the impugned judgment is to be accepted, then even if the chemical examiner’s report establishes that the contraband article contains morphine and meconic acid, a person cannot be convicted unless it is further established that the contraband material has a genesis in papaver somniferum L...This would frustrate the object of the Act and defeat its very purpose,” held the bench.
Letting an accused escape the punishment despite being found dealing with a contraband material could never have been the intention of the legislature, said the bench, adding the court must prefer adopting a legal interpretation which advances the purpose of the statute.
“Taking into consideration that the country had, for the last many years, been increasingly faced with the problem of trafficking of drugs, which had posed serious problems to governments at the State and Centre, it was found necessary to enact a comprehensive law. It is, thus, clear that the dominant purpose of the new enactment was to curb the menace of trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances. Therefore, the interpretation which advances the purpose of the Act has to be preferred rather than adopting a pedantic and a mechanical approach,” it underlined.
The bench said that after the tests positively indicate the sample of poppy straw to contain morphine and meconic acid, a further requirement to establish that the contraband species belong to the species of only papaver somniferum L would be contrary to the legislative intent.
It also highlighted that the 1985 Act empowers the Centre to include by way of a notification in the official gazette any other species of plant from which opium could be extracted, indicating that the legislative intent is to bring all such species within the fold of the anti-narcotics law.
