Drug menace has assumed alarming proportions: High Court chides Punjab Govt

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, February 4

In an embarrassment for the Punjab Government, already facing allegations of not doing enough to arrest the drug menace in the state, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asserted that the state authorities are expected to finally wake up to the threat as it has attained alarming proportions. The Bench also made it clear that senior police officials were either ineffective in ensuring the presence of official witnesses before the trial court or an unholy nexus existed between them and the accused for facilitating their bail.

Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit has already placed the state in the dock for its ineffectiveness by stating, among other things, that the drug situation in the state is a matter of grave concern. Taking up a bail matter, Justice Manjari Nehru Kaul directed the forwarding of her order’s copy to the Punjab Principal Secretary (Home) and the Director-General of Police to enable them to take corrective measures in the light of the court’s observations. “It is expected that the state authorities will at last wake up from their slumber. It is all the more imperative for the state to look into the above (judgment) as it is no secret that the menace of drug trafficking has assumed alarming proportions,” Justice Kaul asserted. Making it clear that the High Court would no longer remain a helpless spectator, Justice Kaul asserted that the court was constrained to observe that prosecution witnesses, particularly in cases under the NDPS Act, had not been appearing before the trial court to record their evidence, despite the prosecution having been admonished time and again by the High Court.

As a result, the trials were getting unnecessarily delayed. The trial court, as well as undertrials, had been virtually left at the prosecution’s mercy. It was a matter of record that higher-ranking police officials, including SSPs of different districts in the state, had been called to the High Court on a number of occasions before being directed to look into “this lackadaisical approach on the part of the prosecution witnesses, most of whom admittedly are police officials”.

“This court has no hesitation in observing that either senior police officials have been ineffective in ensuring the presence of the official witnesses in the court for evidence or the only other inference that can be drawn is that there is an unholy nexus between police officials and the accused, so as to create a ground for undertrials to be released on bail on account of their long incarceration,” Justice Kaul asserted.

Governor had flagged issue

Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit has already placed the state in the dock for its ineffectiveness by stating, among other things, that the drug situation in the state is a matter of grave concern.