Of the 167 cases tried under the special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act court last year, all except one have led to acquittals like these. And most of them are due to improper procedures adopted by the police.

According to NDPS court records, of the 167 cases, 162 ended in acquittals and in four cases the court had to free the accused for want of evidence. And this has been the trend of the last five years (see box)—in 2004, all 17 cases tried by the special NDPS court resulted in acquittals.

Public prosecutors have been crying hoarse about the police’s contempt for following proper legal procedures in drug cases. “I have written to principal secretary (Law and Judiciary) Ashok Bhangale about it. The acquittals are always due to technicalities where the police do not follow legal procedures,” said a public prosecutor on condition of anonymity.

“The one case in which we got a conviction is because it was a case of drugs recovered during a routine combing operation where not many procedures are there to follow,” he added. The case was registered by the Matunga police on December 16, 2004 in which Madhukar Pallera and his accomplice, Ramesh, were arrested while in possession of 17.5 kg of cannabis during a routine combing operation.

Pallera was convicted on September 5 last year and got 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh, while Ramesh was acquitted for want of evidence.

But records reveal that Central law enforcement agencies like the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Department of Customs and Central Excise, and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) are able to secure a higher number of convictions—at least 60 per cent of the cases—when compared to the Mumbai Police’s Anti Narcotics Cell (ANC). And that’s because in cases registered by them, the statements of the accused recorded by them are admissible in court.

... contd.