Indrajit Chatterjee, J. - (1.) BOTH these appeals are taken up together and a common judgement is being passed as this appeal arose out of a common judgement passed by the then Special Court, NDPS Act, Nadia at Krishnagar in NDPS Case No. 26 of 2011 wherein the present appellants, Mustafa Mondal, (Criminal Appeal No. 684 of 2013) and Jamela Bibi and Tinku Chowdhury, (Criminal Appeal No. 799 of 2013) were convicted in respect of the charge under Section 20(b) of the N.D.P.S. Act (hereinafter called as the Act). The fact of the case as went for trial before the Trial Court can be stated in brief thus: - - "That the FIR was filed by one S.I., Kanchan Roy Mukherjee (P.W.1), of Kotwali P.S. District: Nadia, to this effect that on receipt of a secret source information, he with force left for Krishnagar bus stand after lodging one G.D. Entry No. 1624 dated 30th March, 2011 at about 10 -25 hours and apprehended four accused persons including two women namely, Jamela Bibi and Tinku Chowdhury, with four bags in their possession. The male accused persons from whose possession also such bags were recovered were Sukhen Biswas and Mustafa Mondal. It was further case of the prosecution that one Manoj Biswas was there at the spot and seeing the police party, he fled away."
(2.) A common notice was issued to all the four accused persons as contemplated under Section 50 of the said Act (Ext.2). Out of four convicts these two appeals were preferred by three appellants. It may be noted that the 4th co -accused, Sukhen Biswas, did not prefer any appeal as against the order of conviction and in this regard the report dated 10 -09 -2015 of the department may be taken into consideration. All the four accused persons were searched at the spot in presence of Inspector of Police, Arun Kumar Das, who was a Gazetted Officer, and on completion of all formalities, the search and seizure of the four bags were made. 12 kgs. of Ganja was recovered from the possession of the Mustafa Mondal, 11 kgs. of Ganja was recovered from the possession of the accused, Sukhen Biswas (not appellant), 9 kgs. of Ganja was recovered from the possession of the accused, Jamela Bibi and 9 kgs. of Ganja was also recovered from the possession of the 4th accused -appellant, Tinku Chowdhury. One common seizure list was prepared in presence of the witnesses like Rajesh Sarkar (P.W.3), Subrata Ghosh (P.W.7) and Madan Ghosh (P.W.4). Thereafter all the accused persons were arrested and taken to Kotwali Police Station, Krishnagar, District: Nadia and one F.I.R. was lodged Kanchan Roy Mukherjee (PW 1) of the said P.S. giving rise to Kotwali P.S. Case No. 1238 of 2011 dated 30 -03 -2011 under Section 20(b)/20(c)/29 and 30 of the said Act. The matter was diarised as per G.D. Entry No. 1659 of 2011 dated 30 -03 -2011. Thereafter, the investigation was taken up as per order of the Officer -in -Charge of that Police Station by the S.I., Tapan Chatterjee (P.W.10). During the course of investigation, this I.O. visited the place of occurrence, prepared a sketch map with index (marked as Ext.7), seized the G.D. Entry No. 1659 dated 30 -03 -2011 (certified copy of the G.D. Entry was marked as Ext.6), he examined the available witnesses, forwarded the sample of alleged Ganja to the State Drugs Control & Research Laboratory, Calcutta, under proper seal and collected the report. The report of the said Laboratory suggested that the 8 samples so forwarded contained Ganja. After receipt of this report, this I.O. submitted charge sheet against 5 accused persons including the present appellants in respect of the offence punishable under Sections 20(b)/20(c)/29 and 30 of the said Act. The case was tried by the learned Trial Court. Before the learned Trial Court, 10 witnesses were examined and several documents were marked as Exts., about which I have already stated. The learned Trial Court on scrutiny of the evidence both oral and documentary, considering the examination of the accused under Section 313 of Cr.P.C. and hearing the argument of the parties, came to the conclusion that the prosecution was able to prove the charge against these four accused -appellants in respect of the charge punishable under Section 20(b) of the said Act. However, accused, Manoj Biswas, was acquitted by the learned Trial Court. The learned Trial Court imposed sentence of 5 years rigorous imprisonment on all the present appellants and also sentenced them to pay fine of Rs. 20,000/ - in default and to suffer simple imprisonment for further six months for the said offence. The court further ordered that the period of detention undergone by the present accused -appellants during the investigation and trial stage be set off under Section 428 of the Cr.P.C.
(3.) IT may be mentioned that before the learned Trial Court the defence preferred not to adduce any oral and documentary evidence. The defence also did not make out any specific case but alleged that they were implicated falsely in this case.;