1. The petitioner was undergoing trial before a Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Barnala under Sec. 9 of the Opium Act. It was alleged against him that he was found to be in possession of 20 kgs. of opium. The prosecution had closed its case. The accused had been examined under Sec. 311, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and he had closed his defence. It is at that stage that an application was made by the prosecution to get produced as Court evidence an affidavit of one Harpal Singh, a functionary of the office of the Chemical Examiner, to whom Constable Sadhu Ram had handed over the sample of opium, and with whom the sample had remained intact, till it went into the hands of the Chemical Examiner. Seemingly, (though not said in so many words by the learned Judicial Magistrate) this was necessitated by the prosecution on account of three Single Bench decisions of this Court reported as Tehal Singh V/s. State of Punjab, Criminal Revision No. 219 of 1979 decided on 20th Nov. 1980* Amarjit Singh V/s. State of Punjab, 1981 Chand LR (Cri) 608 and Atma Singh V/s. State of Punjab, 1981 Chand LR (Cri) 612 (the latter two decisions rendered by me) where absence of such link evidence