CRL. APPEAL No. 1027/2015 Page 1 of 30

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

CRL. APPEAL 1027/2015& CRL. M.B. 511/2019 &

CRL. M.A. 1660/2020 (Early Hearing)

Reserved on

: 26.02.2020

Decision on

: 13.03.2020

IN THE MATTER OF:

AMANI FIDEL CHRIS

..... Appellant

Through:

Mr. J.S. Khushwaha, Adv.

Versus

NARCOTICS CONTROL BUREAU

..... Respondent

Through:

Mr. Rajesh Manchanda and Mr. R.

Manchanda, Advs.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MANOJ KUMAR OHRI

1.

The present appeal is directed against the judgment dated 28.07.2015

passed by the Special Judge whereby the appellant was convicted for the

offence under Section 21(c) NDPS Act and was sentenced to undergo RI for

10 years and fine of Rs.1 lac in default whereof to undergo SI for 6 months.

It was further directed that after completion of the sentence, the convict be

deported to his country.

2. Briefly, the relevant facts as noted by the trial court for the disposal of

the present appeal are reproduced as under :-

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complaint was filed.”

3. The appellant was charged along with two other co-accused persons

Savita @ Neha Rai and Subrata Mitra who were declared proclaimed

offenders and the trial proceeded only against the present appellant. The

prosecution examined a total of 15 witnesses in support of its case. The

appellant, at the time of recording of his statement under Section 313

Cr.P.C., denied the prosecution case.

4. Learned counsel for the appellant has rested his case only on the point

that the respondent committed an illegality while drawing samples from the

seized substance. He has submitted that as per the case of the prosecution,

the recovery was made from a ‘stroller bag’ which had four carton boxes

carrying door spring machines. The cavity of the spring machine was found

stuffed with a brown colour packet. In all, four packets were seized. The

officials after recovering the contraband from the four packets transferred

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the contents of the four packets in separate white polythene and mixed it.

Two representative samples of 5 grams each were drawn which were later

sent to CRCL for analysis. It was contended that transferring the contents of

all the four packets into one and then drawing the sample has caused serious

prejudice to the appellant as it cannot be ascertained that all the four packets

were containing the alleged narcotic substance i.e., heroin. It was contended

that individual samples from each of the four packets ought to have been

drawn and in this regard has placed reliance on the decision of a coordinate

bench of this Court in Charlse Howell @ Abel Kom v. N.C.B. (Delhi)

reported as 2018(3) JCC [Narcotics] 153.

5. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondent submitted that by

mixing the contents of the four packets, no prejudice has been caused to the

appellant as prior to mixing, the individual samples were drawn from each

packet separately and tested with the ‘