- (1.) This judgment shall dispose of two criminal appeals bearing Nos. S-1732-SB of 2005 and S-1643-SB of 2005 arising out of a common judgment passed by the trial Court based on similar incident. However, for the sake of convenience, the facts are being extracted from Criminal Appeal No. S-1732-SB of 2005.
(2.) The accused-appellants, namely, Mukhtiar Chand and Gian Chand were convicted for offence punishable under Section 15 of NDPS Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') and sentenced to undergo RI for a period of ten years and to pay a fine of ' one lac each and in default of payment of fine to further undergo RI for a period of six months by Judge, Special Court, Nawanshahr, which is the subject matter of challenge in the present appeals.
(3.) Briefly, the facts of the prosecution version are that on 8.6.2001, SI Surjit Kumar, Incharge CIA Staff, Nawanshahr accompanied by ASI Raunki Dass and other police officials was present in the area of village Bhin in connection with patrolling duty. A secret information was received that two persons, namely, Mukhtiar Chand and Gian Chand were transporting poppy husk in Tata 709 bearing registration No. PB-10-AF- 1019 for distributing the same in the village and in case a naka was set up on the bridge of the canal, they could be apprehended. Naka was set up on the bridge of the canal. The said vehicle was stopped by the police party. Accused-Mukhtiar Chand was driving the vehicle, whereas, accused-Gian Chand was sitting on the bags lying on the rear portion of the vehicle. On the basis of suspicion, an option was given to the accused whether they wanted to be searched in the presence of a Gazetted Officer or a Magistrate to which they opted to be searched in the presence of a Gazetted Officer. DSP Balbir Singh was contacted on wireless and was requested to reach at the spot. On reaching the spot, he disclosed his identity to the appellants. Both the accused reposed confidence in DSP Balbir Singh and search was conducted in his presence. Twenty bags containing 35 kgs each of poppy husk were recovered from the vehicle and out of those bags, 250 gms poppy husk each was drawn as samples and were turned into parcels. Sample parcels and bags were sealed with seal bearing impressions SK and the same were handed over to PW Sohan Lal. Case property was taken into possession vide memo which was duly attested by the witnesses. On personal search of both the accused, currency notes of Rs. 50/- each were recovered from them and the same were also taken into possession vide separate recovery memos. The accused were arrested. The parcels as well as case property were handed over to the investigating officer, which were deposited with MHC Paramjit Singh. The samples were sent to chemical examiner for analysis. As per report of the chemical examiner, the contents of the sample parcels were found to be poppy husk.;