A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking quashing/stopping of the immediate operation of the Sections 21, 27, 27A, 35, 37 and 54 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act,1985 (NDPS Act) thereby declaring them as unconstitutional in their present form.
The PIL further seeks direction to the Union Government:-
(i) to withdraw the cases instituted against the alleged drug users and those who are facing the charges of procuring drugs for the consumption of their associates having no commercial angle,
(ii) reframe above provisions of the NDPS Act in view of the submissions made in the present PIL thereby decriminalize the purchase of certain drugs up to certain level “small scale” for personal consumption or for ones relative or dear ones or live-in partner or master encouraging side by side public health approach to drug users including recreational users ,
(iii) undertaking identifying, counseling and treating drug users and not punish them by sending them to jail those who treat the drug users, and drug addicts with disdain.
Filed by Advocate Jai Krishna Singh in person, the PIL seeks to set up an inquiry into the Rs 18 crore extortion racket run allegedly by NCB Zonal head, either by CBI or by a retired judge of the Supreme Court.
The PIL stated that a cause of action has further arisen following the recent arrest by the NCB of 23-year-old Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, and other youngsters on the strength of mere alleged / purported chat with sellers of contraband and further on the allegation of conscious possession, as well as on possession of contraband worth 6 grams even though it was recovered from his friend and not from him, thereby raising this serious questions of law and fact. Now the government is in reconsideration mode of the above aspects of drug use but it will take years before it becomes a reality, said the PIL.
In the petition, it is alleged that the way alleged drug users specially children from Bollywood were jailed on the charge of drug use and being part of drug syndicate, shows that the law was not implemented with the spirit which had motivated the enactment of the said NDPS Act and the NCB was acting under some extraneous influence.
The spirit behind the enactment of the NDPS Act 1985 was to secure the return of alleged drug users to society and cracking down heavily on drug traffickers. But over the years the spirit has been lost and alleged drug users including recreational users have become mostly the targets of the enforcement agencies overlooking the need to focus on alleged drug users’ rehabilitation and keeping their identities covered.
It is submitted by Jai Krishna Singh that this has happened mainly because certain provisions of the NDPS Act militate against the very spirit/objective which motivated the said legislation. Further, it gave the opportunity to enforcement agencies to abuse the provisions because there are inherent contradictions in certain provisions of the said Act itself.
Therefore, the petitioner claimed the operation of Sections 21, 27, 27A , 37 and 54 of the NDPS Act need to be modified urgently until suitable amendment takes place to it as it penalizes consumption as well as possession by users besides distribution, manufacture and sale of any narcotic or psychotropic substance irrespective of its quantities. Section 27 lists the punishment for consumption of drugs and Section 27A provides for punishment for financing “illicit trafficking and harboring offenders”. Further, a person is being penalized/jailed on alleged grounds of conscious possession. Also despite the NDPS Act being so diverse, it still terms any user as an addict including the recreational users and punishes personal consumption spelling out life long consequences for such users causing stigmatization.
“Section 27A gives a much wider ambit and broader interpretation to the term “illicit trafficking” as the very term takes within its fold and treats alike both – the simple purchaser of a small quantity for himself or for his or her associates where there is no commercial angle as well as the professional financier involved in commercial business, as stated hereinabove, whereas in common parlance it means drug operative / professional financer who is engaged in sale and purchase of banned drugs for profit-making on larger scale or international scale,” the PIL reads.