A laboratory report proves what was in the envelope, not what was taken from the accused

Justice Sandeep Kumar set aside an NDPS conviction of 2014, holding the prosecution never proved that any narcotic substance was seized from the appellants.

Two men sentenced in 2014 to five years' rigorous imprisonment under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act have been acquitted by the Patna High Court, because nothing in the evidence connected the envelope tested at the forensic laboratory with anything taken from them. Justice Sandeep Kumar held that even assuming the report was duly proved and put to the appellants, it establishes no more than that the contents of an envelope received at the laboratory on 5 March 2013 contained tetrahydrocannabinol — and that the question which decides the case is whether the prosecution proved a seizure from these men on 23 December 2011. It did not.

The conviction under appeal

The appellants challenged a judgment of conviction of 8 May 2014 and an order of sentence of 13 May 2014 passed by the 6th Additional Sessions Judge, Muzaffarpur, in Trial No. 08 of 2013, arising out of Muzaffarpur Town police station Case No. 662 of 2011. They had been convicted under Section 20(b)(ii)(B) of the NDPS Act and each sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 25,000, in default a further six months. They were acquitted of the charge under Section 22 of the Act.

The prosecution case came from the fardbeyan of the official informant, then the Officer-in-Charge of the Town police station, recorded on 23 December 2011 at 1:30 p.m. at the campus of a cinema hall in Muzaffarpur, about an incident said to have occurred at around 11:15 that morning. Mr. Bhavesh Kumar appeared for the appellants and Mr. Abhay Kumar, Additional Public Prosecutor, for the State. The judgment was reserved on 3 September 2026 and delivered on 8 October 2026.

The gap between the seizure and the laboratory

The forensic result was not in doubt. What was missing was the chain that would make it relevant.

The envelope reached the laboratory on 5 March 2013 — more than fourteen months after the date of the alleged seizure — and its contents tested positive for tetrahydrocannabinol. Justice Sandeep Kumar held that, for reasons already recorded in the judgment, there is no evidence connecting that envelope with anything seized from the appellants on 23 December 2011, and that the report cannot by itself be conclusive proof, as the Supreme Court held in Vijay Pandey.

When every witness came from the raiding party

A second strand concerned who investigated. The appellants argued that the investigation by PW-6, a member of the raiding party, vitiated the trial.

On the law the judgment follows the Constitution Bench in Mukesh Singh vs State (Narcotic Branch of Delhi), (2020) 10 SCC 120, which held that investigation by the informant or complainant himself does not by itself vitiate the trial; bias or unfairness has to be established on the facts of each case, and the question is one of the weight to be attached to the evidence where the prosecution rests on the testimony of the officers concerned. State vs V. Jayapaul, (2004) 5 SCC 223, was also referred to.

Applying it, the Court found PW-6 was not the informant, and declined to hold the investigation vitiated on that ground alone. But it added an observation that does the real work: in a case in which every substantive witness is a member of the raiding party, the circumstance that the investigation too was conducted by one of them deprives the prosecution of even that measure of independent verification which an investigation by an officer unconnected with the raid would have supplied.

What an accused has to prove, and how much

The last strand was the defence built on a document exhibited by the appellants. Here the judgment restates a distinction that is often blurred in NDPS trials.

The standard of proof the law exacts from an accused is only that of preponderance of probabilities. Quoting Dharampal Singh, the judgment records that the standard expected of the prosecution is to prove possession beyond all reasonable doubt, while what an accused needs to establish innocence is a preponderance of probability — and that once the accused's plea is found probable, the prosecution's discharge of its initial burden will not nail him with the offence.

Order

The question the Court set itself was whether the prosecution case fell short of proof beyond reasonable doubt. Its answer was that the prosecution failed to prove that any narcotic substance was seized from the appellants on 23 December 2011, and that the benefit of that failure must go to them.

The appeal was allowed. The judgment of conviction of 8 May 2014 and the order of sentence of 13 May 2014 were set aside, and the appellants acquitted of the charge levelled against them. Being on bail, they are discharged from the liabilities of their bail bonds, and any fine deposited in terms of the sentence is to be refunded to them. The lower court records were directed to be sent back forthwith with a copy of the judgment.