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2013 (10) TMI 1204 - SC - CustomsOffence under Section 15 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 - Rights of the accused - an opportunity to the appellant for holding any search in the presence of a Gazetted officer or a Magistrate - Necessity to comply with Section 50 of the NDPS Act - Quantification of punishment - Trial Court relied on the case of State of Punjab vs. Baldev Singh [1999 (7) TMI 630 - SUPREME COURT] - Held that:- after noticing three gunny bags, P.W.6, as an investigating officer, felt the need to invoke the provisions of Section 50 and thereby provide an opportunity to the appellant for holding any search in the presence of a Gazetted officer or a Magistrate. When once P.W.6 could assimilate the said legal requirement as stipulated under Section 50 of the NDPS Act, we fail to understand as to how principle No.1 in paragraph 25 of the decision reported in Balbir Singh (supra) could be applied. Unfortunately, the trial Court failed to understand the said principle set out in Balbir Singh (supra) in the proper perspective while holding that neither Section 42 nor Section 50 was attracted to the facts of this case. The conclusion of the trial Court in having held that Sections 42 and 50 were not applicable to the case on hand was a total misunderstanding of the legal provisions in the light of the facts placed before it and consequently the conclusion arrived at for convicting the appellant was wholly unjustified. All that the trial Court did was to hold that the version of the prosecution witnesses cannot be discarded merely because they were police officers and that the evidence of P.W.3 was sufficient to support the search and recovery of the narcotic substance from the appellant. The trial Court also held that the version of the defence witnesses was not worth mentioning. It will be highly dangerous to simply affirm the ultimate conclusion of the trial Court in having convicted the appellant and the sentence imposed based on such conviction, as the same was without any ratiocination. It was most unfortunate that the High Court failed to independently examine the correctness of the findings recorded by the trial Court by simply extracting a portion of the judgment of the trial Court, while affirming the conviction - Judgment of the trial Court and the confirmation of the same by the High Court cannot be sustained - Decided in favour of assessee.
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