SC grants bail to a man given a 20-year jail term by Himachal high court in drugs case

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 20

The Supreme Court has granted bail to a man from Himachal Pradesh convicted in a drugs trafficking case and sentenced to 20-year imprisonment, noting that the state high court did not deal with the reasons recorded by the trial court for his acquittal.

“We have gone through the judgment of the high court and are prima facie satisfied that the reasons which weighed with the trial court while recording acquittal were not dealt with by the high court,” a Bench headed by Justice UU Lalit said in an order earlier this month, granting bail to accused Shiv Ram.“In our view, the appellant is, therefore, entitled to be released on bail during the pendency of the present appeal.”

Shiv Ram—who was allegedly caught sitting on the rear seat of a vehicle with 8.6 kg charas in a black bag on his lap supplied by one Sita Ram—was charged with certain offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.

However, he acquitted by Special Judge, Kinnaur (Sessions Division) at Rampur Bushahr on August 6, 2011 along with his alleged accomplice. The trial court held that the recovery of the contraband was not established from the appellant.

On an appeal filed by the state, the high court on September 6, 2016 affirmed the acquittal of accused Sita Ram but reversed the acquittal of Shiv Ram. It held that the recovery of contraband was fully established from Shiv Ram on the basis of the testimony of official witnesses and accordingly sentenced him to 20-year imprisonment with fine. In case he defaulted on payment of fine, Shiv Ram was ordered to undergo a further rigorous imprisonment of six months.

Shiv Ram’s counsel Anil Nag contended before the Supreme Court that the high court overlooked certain vital aspects of the case. Nag pointed out that no independent witness was associated even though there were shops and houses near the place of the occurrence. Also, no gazetted officer or magistrate was called to conduct personal search of the appellant and there was overwriting in the consent memo prepared on the spot, he contended.

Nag argued that the word bag had been introduced at a later stage and it was wrongly described as a black bag in the seizure memo even though there were 3-inch wide red stripes on the bag.

He said the appeal raised an important question as to whether in the absence of independent witnesses, the version of official witnesses—SHO Gurbachan Singh and Head Constable Kashmi Ram could be relied upon to establish recovery of contraband from the possession of the appellant/accused Shiv Ram.

Nag pointed out that there were discrepancies in the evidence of official witnesses in relation to non-mentioning of the bag containing contraband in the consent memo prepared by the complainant.