2023 (10) TMI 866 - SUPREME COURT

Smuggling - recovery of contraband - Charas - acquittal of accused - prosecution had failed to prove its case against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt - conviction for the offence under Section 20 of the NDPS Act - applicability of Section 50 of the NDPS Act.

Whether the High Court committed any error in holding the appellant herein guilty of the offence punishable under Section 20 of the NDPS Act?

HELD THAT:- The only idea with which have beenreferred to the various decisions of this Court starting with Balbir Singh [1994 (3) TMI 173 - SUPREME COURT] till DAYALU KASHYAP VERSUS THE STATE OF CHHATTISGARH [2022 (1) TMI 1400 - SUPREME COURT] is to highlight that Section 50 of the NDPS Act has been tried to be interpreted and understood in many ways. As noted earlier, in some of the decisions of this Court, the concept of “inextricably linked to person” was applied. In other words, if the bag, etc. is in immediate possession of the accused and the search is undertaken of such bag, etc., even then, according to those decisions, Section 50 would be applicable. It could legitimately be argued that the interpretation of Section 50 restricting its scope only to the search of a person of the accused would frustrate the object as the apprehension of the person concerned may continue to subsist that he may still be implicated by the police or any other person for more stringent punishment of carrying commercial quantity by getting rid of the rigor of the mandatory provision of Section 50 by implanting the contraband in a vehicle, bag, etc. accompanying the person.

The statute clearly declared that for burglary to happen, the defendant should be physically present. In this case, although the defendant never entered the house, yet he did extend his tree snips through the window. The Court held that, “there is no meaningful difference between the snips and his arm because the penetration by the snips was merely an extension of Klein’s person.” Therefore, in the said case, the object which a person was carrying was held to be part of his body. A similar view could also have been adopted while interpreting the term “personal search”. However, in view of plain and unambiguous statutory provision, there is no scope of interpreting Section 50 in any other manner than the interpretation explained in Baldev Singh and Pawan Kumar.

It is a well-settled principle in law that the Court should not read anything into a statutory provision which is plain and unambiguous. A statute is an edict of the legislature. The language employed in a statute is the determinative factor of the legislative intent. The first and primary rule of construction is that the intention of the legislation must be found in the words used by the legislature itself. The question is not what may be supposed and has been intended but what has been said - While interpreting a provision, the Court only interprets the law and cannot legislate it. If a provision of law is misused and subjected to the abuse of process of law, it is for the legislature to amend, modify or repeal it, if deemed necessary.

Two principles of construction — one relating to casus omissus and the other in regard to reading the statute as a whole — appear to be well settled. Under the first principle a casus omissus cannot be supplied by the Court except in the case of clear necessity and when reason for it is found in the four corners of the statute itself but at the same time a casus omissus should not be readily inferred and for that purpose all the parts of a statute or section must be construed together and every clause of a section should be construed with reference to the context and other clauses thereof so that the construction to be put on a particular provision makes a consistent enactment of the whole statute. This would be more so if literal construction of a particular clause leads to manifestly absurd or anomalous results which could not have been intended by the legislature.

As such, there is no direct conflict between SK. Raju [2018 (9) TMI 845 - SUPREME COURT] and STATE OF PUNJAB VERSUS BALJINDER SINGH AND ORS. [2019 (10) TMI 1574 - SUPREME COURT]. It is pertinent to note that in SK. Raju (supra) the contraband was recovered from the bag which the accused was carrying, whereas in Baljinder Singh the contraband was recovered from the vehicle. This makes a lot of difference even while applying the concept of any object being “inextricably linked to the person”.

It has been observed in Baldev Singh [1999 (7) TMI 630 - SUPREME COURT] that drug abuse is a social malady. While drug addiction eats into the vitals of the society, drug trafficking not only eats into the vitals of the economy of a country, but illicit money generated by drug trafficking is often used for illicit activities including encouragement of terrorism. It has acquired the dimensions of an epidemic, affects the economic policies of the State, corrupts the system and is detrimental to the future of a country - It is, therefore, absolutely imperative that those who indulge in this kind of nefarious activities should not go scotfree on technical pleas which come handy to their advantage in a fraction of second by slight movement of the baggage, being placed to any part of their body, which baggage may contain the incriminating article.

The High Court was justified in holding the appellant guilty of the offence under the NDPS Act and at the same time, the High Court was also correct in saying that Section 50 of the NDPS Act was not required to be complied with as the recovery was from the bag.

Appeal dismissed.