Compliance with procedural requirements under Sec 52A of the NDPS Act is essential but evaluated during the trial, not at the discharge petition phase.

ORDER

The rejection of the petition for discharge filed by the petitioner by the learned Principal Special Judge, Principal Special Court under EC & NDPS Act, Chennai, vide order dated 28.07.2023 in Crl. M.P. No.2956/2023 in C.C. No.37/2020 is put to challenge by filing the present revision petition.

2. The petitioner was charged for the offences u/s 8 (c) r/w 22 (c), 25, 28 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Act (for short ‘the Act’) r/w Section 135A of the Customs Act on the allegation that contraband was sought to be exported under the guise of Herbal/Ayurvedic medicines vide multiple shipping reference bills of M/s.ST Courier, Chennai, through M/s.Aviation Star Express, a franchisee of M/s.DHL Express India Pvt. Ltd. Upon receipt of the said information in writing u/s 42 of the Act, on 15.10.2019, around 22.00 hours, search was conducted at the premises of M/s.Aviation Star Express at Door No.9A, New No.27, Dhanakoti Raja Street, Ekkattuthangal, Chennai under the shipping reference numbers of M/s.ST Courier, all dated 15.10.2019 for onward transmission to USA. The said consignment was booked by one M.V.Srinivasan, proprietor of M/s.2 Destination. The said consignments, were seized under mahazar at the premises of M/s.Aviation Star Express. On 16.10.2019, at 11.00 hours, search was effected at the residential premises of the petitioner at No.95/95, TI, 3^rd Floor, Swarnalakshmi Apartments, Orgadam Road, Ambattur, in the presence of two witnesses and during the search operations, one person, named M.Ashok Kumar was introduced at the employee of the petitioner. Incriminating materials were seized, which were serially numbered from 1 to 66 and marked as Annexure I. Since the said place was not conducive for conducting detailed inventory of the items, the incriminating materials were move to the offices of the respondent for detailed investigation. During the proceedings, a packet was delivered to Ashok Kumar, which was also seized and inventoried. The officers seized the items listed in Annexures A to E, packaging materials, labels, weighing machines, a laptop, etc.

3. Thereafter, on 16.10.2019, from 12.00 noon onwards, search was conducted at the premises of M/s.2 Destination, franchise of M/s.ST Courier located at Shop No.12, Ground Floor, Taas Mahal, No.10, Monteith Road, Egmore, which had cleared the 9 consignments seized from M/s.Aviation Star. On searching the premises, plastic boxes containing stickers of “Moringa Olaitera” and “True Clucosammune” were seized and mahazar was prepared. Search was also conducted at the business premises of M/s.DHL Express (India) Pvt. Ltd., located at Plot No.12-B, South Phase, Guindy Industrial Estate, Chennai and 12 packages were seized in which tablets, weighing 90 Kgs., were found, which were seized under the mahazar, as it was reasonably believed that the said tablets were psychotropic substances.

4. It is the further case that on 17.10.2019, the petitioner’s statement was recorded in which the complicity of various persons, including V.Srinivasan, M.Ashok Kumar and one Bharat Choudhary of Jaipur and one Prakash Kataria, proprietor of Simran Medical, Nagpur came to light and the statements were recorded u/s 67 of the Act, wherein it was admitted that they were allegedly involved in sending consignments of psychotropic tablets through courier to customers abroad.

5. The petitioner/A-1 and A-2 and A-3 were arrested for the aforesaid offences and remanded to judicial custody on 18.10.2019. On 21.10.2019, the case properties were produced along with memo and on 22.10.2019, as per the order of the court below, 71 samples were sent to lab for chemical analysis and the remaining contraband were returned for safe custody with the investigating officer. Of the 71 samples, 27 were shown to be psychotropic substances. An application was filed before the court below on 21.01.2020 to sent 26 samples to CFSL, Hyderabad in respect of which facilities were not available in Chennai fo