ORDER :

Leave granted.

2. The present appeal arises qua an incident of 11.09.2010 of 10.30 in the morning when Sub Inspector K.S.Singh (PW-5), on the basis of the information received, apprehended the appellant and found that he was carrying Ganja in a green polythene bag on a wooden Kanwad from Bhaisabeda to Pithapur for transportation. The appellant was charged under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (‘NDPS Act’) and tried by the Special Judge who convicted the appellant under Section 20(b)(ii)(c) of the NDPS Act and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and to pay a fine of Rs.1 lakh. The appellant preferred an appeal before the High Court of Chhattisgarh but that appeal was dismissed by the impugned order dated 28.03.2019.

3. We issued notice on 01.02.2021 including on the bail application as the appellant had undergone sentence of 10 years and his inability to pay fine was resulting in him serving out the remaining sentence of one year. In the course of hearing this matter with some other matter, on 01.03.2021, we noticed that the only point which really arose for consideration was from the effect of provisions of Section 50 of the ND