Ranchi District Court: In a criminal case registered against the accused for transportation of 200 kgs of Ganja, the Single Judge Bench of Anand Prakash (Addl. Judicial Commissioner-III-cum-Spl. Judge), acquitted the accused, holding that the prosecution had failed to correlate the accused with the vehicle seized and to prove beyond doubt that the accused was apprehended in the manner and at the place as alleged in the prosecution case.
Background
As per the prosecution, on 17-01-2022, the informant received secret information that a white Bolero car loaded with some illegal toxic substance was moving towards Ramgarh from Ranchi Ring Road. When the police set up a check post barrier, the accused persons approached in their car but stopped a few meters before so they could escape on foot. The accused herein was apprehended while the other two escaped. The police discovered 200 kgs of ganja from the side box and the box below the seat of the car. Thereafter, an FIR was registered against four persons under Sections 414 and 34 of the Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), and Sections 20, 22, and 25 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (“NDPS Act”).
Charges were framed against the present accused under Sections 20(b)(ii)(c) and 22(c) of the NDPS Act.
Analysis
At the outset, the Court noted that the informant was unable to state the date of the occurrence, the vehicle number, the colour of the accused’s clothes, or who the vehicle owner was. Furthermore, though he admitted that he caught the accused, no other witness could corroborate the same.
Regarding the police’s statement that rats ate the seized 200 kgs of ganja kept at the police station, the Court remarked that such an incident cast suspicion on the very seizure of the contraband and its handling by the police.
The Court stated that witnesses 1 to 5, who claimed to be eye-witnesses of the entire occurrence, had several contradictions in their statements when compared with each other’s evidence and the prosecution’s case. The witnesses could not mention important details such as the colour of the vehicle, the time of the occurrence, the distance of the vehicle from the checkpoint, etc. Noting this, the Court remarked that such discrepancies cast a doubt on whether the accused was caught at the place as stated by the prosecution or somewhere else.
The Court also noted that no other description except the name, parentage, and address, which is alleged to have been given by the accused, had been mentioned in the FIR. Though photographs of the vehicle were taken, it did not appear to be from the place of seizure, and no vehicle number was displayed on it. There was no photograph of the accused with the vehicle.
Furthermore, the prosecution did not trace the ownership details of the seized vehicle, carry out any investigation into any driving licence of the accused, produce any other documents of the vehicle before the Court, which could show that the seized vehicle was associated with the accused, and inform the Court about the progress regarding the investigation against the two escaped accused.
Thus, the Court held that the prosecution had failed to correlate the accused with the vehicle seized and to prove beyond doubt that the accused was apprehended in the manner and at the place as alleged in the prosecution’s case.
Accordingly, the accused was acquitted and directed to be released.
[State v. Indrajeet Rai, N.D.P.S. Case No. 15/2022, decided on 19-122025]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the complainant: Special Public Prosecutor Deepak Kumar Sanga
For the respondent: Nityanand Singh