The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has recently said that an accused cannot be kept in custody merely for the reason that the offence alleged to have committed by him is of a serious nature.
The Delhi High Court sets aside the order passed by the Patiala House Court where the accused was charged under NDPS act for having illegal possession of 704 unlabelled Bupine Injections.
Celebrity arrests have put the spotlight on drug abuse. While various Acts have stringent provisions to tackle this menace, there are also attempts to depenalise consumption and offences involving small amounts.
The Delhi High Court has observed in a bail application that “it was the court’s obligation to inform the petitioner of his right to bail under Section 167(2) of the Cr.PC.”
In a landmark judgment, the Court held that confession to officers under the Act is not admissible as evidence during trial and infringes on the Constitution. This will have ramifications for the Rhea Chakraborty case as well as others.
The Supreme Court has held with a 2 is to 1 majority that the confession made under section 67 before the officers of the Central and State agencies appointed under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act are not admissible, because the officers are police officers.
As initially enacted for example Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) 1985 (hereinafter alluded to as 'the Act'), there existed no distinction between a drug trafficker and an addict. A uniform sentence construction was specified as punishment for most offences under the Act.
The Supreme Court has burrowed through the labyrinth that Section 50 of the NDPS Act is and ruled that the section was applicable only in the case of personal search.
The bench, comprising Justices Arun Mishra, Indira Banerjee, Vineet Saran, M R Shah and S. Ravindra Bhat observed: “Merely because the informant and the investigating officer is the same, it cannot be said that the investigation is biased and the trial is vitiated.”