Conviction set aside in drug case

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has set aside the life imprisonment of a man in a case pertaining to possession of narcotics while abating the appeal of his brother who died during pendency of the appeal.

Abdul Aziz and Mohammad Ali were sentenced to life imprisonment by the control of narcotics substance court Thatta on August 29, 2018, for the charges of possessing narcotics substance. According to the prosecution, the appellants were arrested by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) on September 4, 2015, and 49 kilogrammes of charas were recovered from their house. One of the appellants, Ali, died during the pendency of the appeal before the SHC.

The appellants’ counsel submitted that they were falsely implicated in the case by the ANF and the prosecution had failed to bring an iota of evidence to prove his connection in the offence. The ANF’s counsel supported the prosecution case and requested the high court to dismiss the appeals.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro, after hearing the arguments of the case, observed that the venue of occurrence was a dwelling house of Aziz’s but no search warrant was obtained from the magistrate concerned for conducting raid at the house.

The bench observed that the only evidence against the appellant was his presence at the house of his brother at the time of raid and no other evidence establishing nexus of the appellant with narcotics had been brought on record.

The SHC observed that the mere presence of the appellant on the spot would not be sufficient to connect him with the alleged narcotics substance particularly when the prosecution had not even alleged a single word about conscious possession of the narcotics by the appellant. The high court observed that the prosecution had failed to establish that the appellant was found in conscious and intelligent possession of the contraband beyond a reasonable doubt.

The bench observed that the trial court was utterly unjustified in convicting and sentencing the appellant. The court set aside the conviction by extending him the benefit of the doubt and ordered his release if not required in other cases.

The SHC also observed that the co-appellant, Ali, had died during pendency of the appeal therefore his appeal was abated.