PHC CJ says narcotics officials’ complicity benefits accused

PESHAWAR: Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court (PHC) Mazhar Alam Miankhel observed on Wednesday that faulty investigation and complicity of the officials concerned benefited the accused in narcotics cases.

Heading a division bench, the PHC chief justice directed the Customs authorities to fix responsibility on the officials concerned in a narcotics case in which 800 kilogram hashish were seized and shown as fake.

The court directed the authorities concerned to submit a detailed report by fixing responsibility on those who were found negligent and didn’t follow the legal procedure in the case that benefited the accused.

The chief justice observed that in narcotics cases the officials concerned deliberately didn’t fulfill legal procedures for benefiting the accused. He said that courts were blamed for releasing and acquitting the accused due to flaws and wrongdoings of investigation officers.

The chief justice said that if the Customs officials didn’t investigate these cases then why they were are not being handed over to the Police Department for proper investigation. The chief justice said that the investigation officer and those who took the narcotics in possession had erred in this case and directed the Customs authorities to probe the matter and submit a report within two months.

The court made these observations and directions in an appeal of the two convicts, including Izzat Khan and Muhammad Ismail, filed through their lawyers Noor Alam Khan and Shahid Naseem Chamkani.

The court partially allowed the appeals against conviction and commuted the sentence from life imprisonment and ordered their release due to faulty investigation and legal errors. During the course hearing, the lawyers submitted that the Customs officials had arrested the petitioners on December 9, 2012 at Scheme Chowk on the Kohat Road.

They said that the Customs officials had recovered 800 kilogram hashish from a vehicle, which they were smuggling to other parts of the country.  They said that the court then awarded life imprisonment to the petitioners. Pleading the case, the lawyers said that the officials had taken samples from packets and then consolidated it as one sample for laboratory.

Under the law, they said that the sample should be taken from every packet and tested separately in the laboratory as to prove that each packet contained narcotics. However, they said that in this case the law was not followed that showed malafide intention of the Customs officials.