SHC dismisses man’s appeal against life imprisonment in narcotics case

The Sindh High Court has dismissed the appeal of a convict against his life imprisonment sentence in a case pertaining to drugs possession.

The appellant, Sabzal Khan, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the control of narcotics substance court for possessing 11.9 kilogrammes of charas.

According to the prosecution, he was arrested by the Quaidabad police and 10 packets of charas weighing 11.9 kilogrammes were recovered from his possession.

The appellant’s counsel denied the prosecution’s allegation by pleading innocence and submitted that he was taken into custody by Rangers officials who transferred his custody to the police officials who implicated him in a false case.

The counsel submitted that there was a dispute concerning the colour of the plastic shopper containing charas and there was no independent witness to the incident.

He submitted that the report of chemical examiner did not satisfy the protocol and it had been collected with delay of about two months and the doubtful evidence of prosecution witness had been believed by the trial court without assigning cogent reasons, therefore, the appellant was entitled to acquittal by extending him the benefit of the doubt.

The appellant, however, did not produce any witness in his defence or spoke on oath to prove his innocent.

An additional prosecutor general by supporting the impugned judgment sought dismissal of the instant criminal appeal by contending that the prosecution had been able to prove its case against the appellant.

A division bench of the SHC comprising Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto and Justice Irshad Ali Shah after hearing the arguments and perusal of evidence of the case observed that the gravity of the offence of nature had got impact on society as a whole.

The high court observed that it was a settled proposition of law that in the case of possession of narcotics substance, if the case, otherwise, was proved, the technicalities of a procedural nature or otherwise should be overlooked.

The SHC observed that all the witnesses had stood by their version on all material points despite lengthy cross-examination by the counsel for the appellant and they could not be disbelieved only for the reason that they were police officials and there was no independent witness.

The court observed that the report of the chemical examiner had been issued after observing the entire protocol therefore, it would be hard to disbelieve the same only for the reason that it was collected late from the office of the chemical examiner.

The bench observed that no case to interfere with the impugned judgment was made out before the court by way of the instant criminal appeal and dismissed the same.