Delhi court acquits man from charges of possessing heroin, carrying illicit liquor

A Delhi court has acquitted a man, accused of carrying illicit liquor and possessing heroin, saying there were “major contradictions” in the deposition of the prosecution witnesses.

Special Judge Deepak Wason, while giving the accused benefit of the doubt in an order passed on August 8, also said that police showed “deliberate disregard” of the statutory procedures during its probe.

The court noted that the investigating agency could not associate even a single public witness at any stage of the investigation and instead “stated casually and routinely” that the people, who were asked to join the investigation, declined and left without disclosing their names and addresses, etc.

“All the above leads to the inevitable inference that the investigating agency was not interested to make any public witness a part of the raiding team and thus there has been a deliberate disregard of the statutory safeguards relating to search and seizure, which renders the recovery proceedings unworthy of credence,” the judge said.

The judge further said that the statement of official witnesses, without corroboration from independent sources, could not result in a conviction under the stringent provisions of the NDPS Act.

Also, there was a delay in sending the seized contraband to the FSL lab, the court said.

“There is an unexplained long delay in sending the samples to FSL as the same was required to be sent to FSL preferably within 72 hours of its seizure,” the judge said adding, “tampering with case property cannot be ruled out and it creates a serious doubt in the prosecution's story.” The accused was acquitted of the offences punishable under Section 33 (unlawful import, export, transport, manufacture, possession, sale, etc. of liquor) of the Delhi Excise Act and 21 (b) (possession, sale, etc. of an intermediate quantity of manufactured drugs and preparations) of NDPS Act. Bindapur police station in southwest Delhi had registered an FIR against the accused under the relevant sections of the Delhi Excise Act and NDPS Act in 2016 for allegedly carrying two cartons of illicit liquor (96 quarter bottles) and possessing 18 plastic packets of heroin containing over nine grams of the contraband.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)