Supreme Court delivers landmark judgment on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985

The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) does not require any more testing to prove an accused person's guilt once a poppy straw seizure tests positive for the presence of morphine and meconic acid, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

The topic of whether it is required to specifically identify the types of contraband recovered—such as poppy husk, poppy straw, etc.—as well as whether the prosecution must present additional evidence—was addressed by the bench of Justice B R Gavai and C T Ravikumar. When interpreting the terms of the 1985 NDPS Act, the court took into account both national and international efforts to control the use of all pharmaceuticals and psychotropic substances as well as numerous scientific research.

The court granted the Himachal Pradesh government's appeal against a high court ruling that overturned, eight gunny bags, each containing 40 kg. of ‘poppy husk’ and one bag containing 30 kg. of ‘poppy husk’. From each of these nine bags, two samples, each weighing 250 grams, were separated and sealed in separate parcels. The samples were sent to the Chemical Examiner, who opined that the samples contained contents of ‘poppy husk” thus, the respondent filed an appeal Criminal Appeal before the High Court.

 The High Court concluded that the two tests conducted by the Chemical Examiner to ascertain whether the samples contained ‘meconic acid’ and ‘morphine’ did not indicate that the stuff examined consisted of the parts of either the plant of the species of the ‘papaver somniferum L’ or a plant of any other pieces of ‘papaver’ from which ‘opium’ or any other ‘phenanthrene alkaloid’ can be extracted and which the Central Government had notified to be ‘opium poppy’ for the 1985 Act. The court allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment and order of conviction and sentence dated 29th November 2004 passed by the trial Court.

The supreme court stated, "We are of the considered view that the High Court was not justified in holding that, even after the chemical examiner's report establishes that the contraband contains 'meconic acid' and 'morphine' unless it was established that the same was derived from the species of 'papaver somniferum L', conviction under Section 15 of the 1985 Act could not be sustained."

When interpreting the terms of the 1985 NDPS Act, the court took into account both national and international efforts to control the use of all drugs and psychotropic substances as well as numerous scientific studies. The bench made the point that, before the passage of the 1985 law, the country had been grappling with the issue of drug trafficking for many years, which had caused significant problems for both state and federal governments.

The bench wrote in its 74-page judgment: "It was found necessary to enact a new law since there were tremendous developments on an international platform and a vast body of international law in the field of narcotics control had evolved through various international treaties and protocols."

Since the judgment and order of the High Court have been set aside, the respondent(s)- accused would be required to surrender-- suspend the sentence till the matter is decided on merits by the High Court. 

Thus, the matter was remanded to the High Court for consideration afresh by what has been held.