JUDGMENT :

S.K. Sahoo, J.

The appellant Amar @ Amarnath Naik faced trial in the Court of learned Sessions Judge -cum- Judge, Special Court, Sambalpur in T.R. No.10 of 2010 for offence punishable under section 20(b)(ii)(C) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (hereafter ‘N.D.P.S. Act’) on the accusation that on 29.04.2010 at about 5.25 a.m. near Birsa Munda Chowk, Ainthapali, he was found transporting 53 kgs. 950 grams of ganja which is of commercial quantity in contravention of the provisions of the N.D.P.S. Act.

The learned trial Court vide impugned judgment and order dated 17.04.2015 found the appellant guilty of the offence charged and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for ten years and to pay a fine of Rs.1,00,000/- (rupees one lakh), in default, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year.

2. The prosecution case, as per the first information report lodged by P.W.10 Alakananda Sahu, S.I. of Police, Ainthapali police station is that on 29.04.2010 at about 4.40 a.m., she along with other police officials came to Birsa Munda Chowk, Ainthapali for regulation of traffic and reached there at 4.50 a.m. and the traffic problem was cleared and at about 5.25 a.m., one Tata Sumo vehicle having no number plate on the front side came from Madanabati School side and on seeing the police, the driver of the Tata Sumo immediately turned to right side and stopped in front of Akash Tent house situated near Bisra Munda Chowk. As the activities of the driver of the vehicle caused suspicion, the police officials followed the vehicle and found a person on the driver’s seat and that person gave his identity by disclosing his name and address and he was the appellant of this case. The informant found the smell of ganja was coming out of the vehicle for which the appellant was asked to open the backdoor of the vehicle and it was found that there are four packets of fertilizers bags suspected to be containing ganja inside the back seat of the vehicle. One number plate of the vehicle i.e. OR 15 E 3680 was found there. P.W.10 immediately intimated the Inspector in charge of Ainthapali police station, Sambalpur and as per the instruction of the I.I.C., she guarded the vehicle. The I.I.C. arrived at the spot at 6.00 a.m. Two local independent witnesses were called to the spot and in their presence, P.W.10 explained to the appellant regarding the intention to search of the vehicle. Personal search of P.W.10 and other police officials were taken so also that of the other witnesses. On the query of P.W.10, the appellant expressed his willingness to be searched in presence of the gazetted officer. As the I.I.C. was the gazetted officer, the Tata Sumo vehicle was searched in his presence and four numbers of fertilizers bags containing ganja (fruiting and flowering) were detected. The appellant was asked to produce any licence or authority for possession or transportation of such ganja in a vehicle but he failed to produce the same. On interrogation, the appellant admitted that he along with another person namely Manu Patra of village Birbira and another unknown person were transporting the ganja to Sundargarh side but he did not disclose the exact place of procurement. The appellant further stated that on seeing the police party, Manu Patra and another ran away from the vehicle. P.W.10 asked the A.S.I. of police Suresh Chandra Sahu to call a weighman to come with weighing instrument and a tailor for stitching and sealing. The A.S.I. returned to the spot with two persons and they were Harisankar Badhei (P.W.3) and another namely Bhimsen Behera. The packets containing ganja were weighed in presence of the appellant and the witnesses and it was separately marked as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’. The net weight of ganja from packet ‘A’ was found to be 16 kg. 50 grams excluding the weight of polythene packet, 16 kg. 800 grams from packet ‘B’, 12 kg. 50 grams from packet ‘C’ and 9 kg. 50 grams from packet ‘D’. Samples of 50 grams was tak