S.S.SANDHAWALIA, J.

1. That every official in the office of the Chemical Examiner (or in the alternative at least some of them), in whose custody at any stage the sample had remained, must necessarily step into the witness box to depose about its safe transmission, is the rather hypertechnical stand taken on behalf of the petitioners which has necessitated this reference to the Division Bench. An inevitable corollary thereof is whether Section 293 of the Code of Criminal Procedure renders admissible the averments in the report of the Chemical Examiner with regard to the condition of such a sample and the manner of its receipt.

2. For the adjudication of the aforesaid pristinely legal questions it seems unnecessary to advert to the facts of any one of this set of 16 connected criminal revisions before us. It suffices to mention that when some of them came up before my learned brother I.S. Tiwana, J. sitting singly, reliance was placed on three single Bench judgements of this Court in Amarjit Singh V/s. State of Punjab, 1981 Chand Cri C 170 (P and H); Criminal Revn. No. 219 of 1979 (Tehal Singh V/s. State of Punjab) decided on November 20, 1980* and Criminal Revn. No. 304 of