Drug peddler awarded 15 years in jail, Rs 1.5 lakh fine

Bhartesh Singh Thakur 

Tribune News Service 

Panchkula, October 22

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Narender Sura today sentenced a drug peddler to 15-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) along with a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh. 

The convict, Praduman Kumar, was arrested with 4.8 kg of hashish on July 11, 2016, in Pinjore. In default of payment of the fine, he will have to further undergo an imprisonment of one-year. He did not pay the fine. 

The court framed charges against him on January 25, 2017, under Section 20 (b)(ii)(c) of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, for possessing commercial quantity of hashish and peddling.

Section 20 deals with producing, manufacturing, possessing, selling, purchasing and transporting drugs. 

Kumar hails from Champaran, Bihar. According to the FIR, he had also been convicted of peddling hashish in Chandigarh. 

On July 11, 2016, there was a tip-off that Kumar would come near Kaushalya Dam in Pinjore with a brown bag containing hashish. He was caught with the bag on the way from the HMT gate towards Kaushalya Dam. 

ACP Rajesh Kumar reached the spot and an inspection was conducted in his presence. Packets containing hashish, weighing 4.830 kg, were found. Sub-Inspector Mange Ram was

the investigating officer and SHO Deepak Kumar had presented the chargesheet in the court. The court convicted Kumar on October 12. 

There was another accused, Pasang Lamba, in the case to whom Kumar had allegedly sold hashish. He was declared a proclaimed offender in the case. “The recovery of drugs was proved in the case, which was a clinching evidence,” said Public Prosecutor Kapil Gaud.

During the arguments on the quantum of the sentence, the prosecution placed on record an earlier conviction of Kumar in Chandigarh in 2004, where he was sentenced to 10-year RI in an NDPS case. “We argued for harsh punishment for him as he is a serial offender,” said Gaud. 

Acquitted in another case

Interestingly, both Kumar and Lamba had faced another NDPS case in the same court where Kumar was acquitted due to “poor investigations”. In this case, 2.890 kg of hashish was recovered from Lamba. The court had, on October 20, ordered the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Panchkula, Abhishek Jorwal, to take action against SI Mange Ram and SHO Deepak Kumar. The court had stated, “The investigation conducted in the present case is most unscientific, non-professional and lopsided, which cannot be considered as fair by any stretch of the imagination.”