Punjab And Haryana High Court Relaxes Norm On 'Mandatory Custody' For Suspension Of Sentence In NDPS Cases

A division bench comprising of Justices M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Sukhvinder Kaur of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that the norm of undergoing minimum mandatory period of custody of 6 years for consideration of grant of relief of suspension of sentence in cases where there is conscious possession of commercial quantity of contraband (as laid down in the decision of Daler Singh 2007(1) RCR (Criminal) 316) is liable to slightly be relaxed by 6 months while maintaining the minimum custody of 15 months after conviction.The petition concerned an application filed under section 389 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code seeking suspension of sentence imposed on the applicant by the Special Court, Ludhiana in an NDPS case convicting him under section 15(c) of the NDPS Act, 1985 for a period of 12 years and also to pay a fine of Rs.1 lakh.Subsequently, the applicant appealed against the decision, which was admitted and the court stayed the recovery of the fine.Submissions of the Applicant’s Counsel:Applicant had been wrongly convicted by the Special Court under section 15(c) of the Act since there is no direct evidence and there are several contradictions in the statements of the prosecution witnesses which were not considered properly by the Special Court.No reasons have been assigned by the Special Court for imposing punishment on the applicant beyond the minimum period of 10 years as mandated by Section 32-B of the ActThere is no possibility of the Appeal being heard in the near future and there is every danger of the Appeal becoming infructuous if the applicant is denied benefit of suspension of rest of his sentence. Such relief can be granted in view of the decision of the Division Bench of this Court in Daler Singh vs. State of Punjab 2007(1) RCR (Criminal) 316, Full Bench of this Court in Dalip Singh alias Deepa vs. State of Punjab 2010 (2) RCR (Criminal) 566, Mangat Rai vs. State of Punjab, Bhola Singh and others vs. State of Punjab, Sandeep Kumar vs. State of Punjab, Balbir Singh vs. State of Punjab and Raghvir Singh vs. State of Punjab. The Applicant also has a right to speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution of India which would also extend to the speedy hearing of the Appeal against his conviction by this Court, and once that is not possible, he ought to be granted relief of suspension of sentence.Submissions of the Respondent’s Counsel:Through a written reply, the Respondent opposed the grant of relief of suspension of sentence to the Applicant and contended the following:The seizure in the instant case is of 15 plastic bags of poppy straw of total weight around 600 kilograms. Without any valid permit of licence, the applicant and another were carrying it in a car container truck and were caught red handed by the DRI Officers. They also gave voluntary statements that they were knowingly trafficking the said illegally narcotic product. Therefore, the evidence on record justified their conviction by the Special CourtReliance was placed upon the judgement of the Supreme Court in Budhiyarin Bai vs. State of Chhattisgarh 2022 (4) RCR (Criminal) 339 where it was held that no leniency should be shown to accused persons who are found guilty under the NDPS Act and in other cases it has held that period of custody undergone cannot be a criterion to suspend the sentence and grant bail. In view of the stringent provision of Section 37 of the Act, mere passage of time cannot be a reason for suspension of sentence.Counsel for the respondent relied on the decision in Rafiq Qureshi vs. Narcotic Control Bureau, Eastern Zonal Unit 2019 (6) SCC 492 and contended that possession of narcotic drugs much higher than commercial quantity warrants imposition of more than minimum punishment under the Act.Judgments referred to / Relied upon by the Bench and their analysis:In Daler Singh's case the right to speedy trial/hearing of an appeal against conviction under the NDPS Act is conferred by Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The court discussed guidelines laid down in the judgement and reiterated that if there is a delay in disposing of an appeal, the sentence may be suspended.Further referring to other judgments that were cited by the counsel for the applicant the bench observed that though the accused was convicted for possessing a large amount of drugs and was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison, the court did not give any special reasons for the longer sentence as required by law, and as a result, the accused was granted relief from the sentence suspension after serving more than 4 years, including 2 years after conviction.Referring to Rafiq Qureshi, the bench made noting of the Supreme Court decision thatIn an appeal against a conviction under the NDPS Act, a higher sentence based on the quantity of substance is valid, even if the court did not consider the factors mentioned in Section 32-B. Similar view has been expressed in Gurdev Singh vs. State of Punjab 2021(6) SCC 558, however that was...

Punjab And Haryana High Court Relaxes Norm On 'Mandatory Custody' For Suspension Of Sentence In NDPS Cases

Bhavya Singh

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