Acquittal of drug paddlers due to defective investigation and poor prosecution is matter of great concern. Guidelines provided for maintaining chain of safe custody.
Some vital steps, which are obligatory to ensure the conviction of an accused through maintaining chain of safe custody, are formulated hereinafter to ensure effective investigation and successful prosecution in cases relating to narcotics.
Any police officer setting up a picket, conducting a raid on spy information or otherwise or leaving police station for patrolling must enter in the relevant police register his departure and arrival. Incorporation of arrival and departure by the police officer in register No.2 maintained under Police Rules, 1934 (hereinafter „Rules‟) is mandatory. The hour of arrival and departure on duty at or from a police station of all enrolled police officers of whatever rank, whether posted at the police station or elsewhere, with a statement of the nature of their duty must be incorporated in the aforesaid register. This entry shall be made immediately on arrival or prior to the departure of the officer concerned and shall be attested by him personally by signature or seal. Every police officer of or above the rank of head constable, when returning from duty other than an investigation in which case diaries are submitted, shall have an entry made in the daily diary by the station clerk or his assistant showing the places he has visited and the duties performed by him during his absence from the police station. 5Such entries provide corroboration qua the alleged recovery of narcotics and arrest of accused and absence of such entries in the relevant register creates doubt which goes in favour of accused.
The parcels of sample and rest of the bulk quantity (case property) shall be secured with sealing wax bearing the seal impression of the responsible/relevant police officer and shall be properly marked and labeled. Thereafter such parcels shall be sent to be kept in safe custody in store room as prescribed under Rules. Entries regarding depositing and removal of said case property subsequently shall be entered in police register No.19 as provided in Rules.
Statements of police officials, recovering the narcotics from accused, making parcels of case property, transporting the same from crime scene to store room to be kept in safe custody, receiving it and keeping it in store room, handing over the sample parcels for further transmission to forensic lab and depositing those parcel in forensic lab, must be recorded under section 161 Cr.P.C. and they must be produced as witnesses during trial to prove the fact that narcotics substance as produced in forensic lab and before the court is same which was recovered from the accused at crime scene.
While transmitting the sample parcels to forensic lab the process provided in rules must be adhered to qua obtaining road certificate from register No. 21 of police station as mentioned in aforementioned rules. Copy of such road certificate should also be made part of case file.
The police official who transmits the complaint to police station for registration of FIR and official who jots down the crime report under section 154 Cr.P.C. in relevant register should be produced before the court as witnesses in order to eliminate all the doubts qua the culpability of a drug paddler.
Prosecutor must ensure that no prosecution witness, who is necessary to prove the chain of safe custody, is left out. Production of these witnesses before the trial court is eventually responsibility of the prosecutor. It is mandatory upon him to perform his functions and exercise his powers fairly, honestly, with due diligence in the public interest and to uphold the justice.
It has also been observed by this court that sometimes crucial incriminatory piece of evidence is not put to an accused, which ultimately results in his acquittal. Trial court should be very cautious and vigilant, while recording statement of accused as envisaged under section 342 Cr.P.C. and should make sure that every piece of evidence available on the record is put to the accused.
In addition to aforementioned steps, Punjab Forensic Science Agency issued directions0Q in year 2012 to establish valid chain of custody of recovered narcotics, which unfortunately could not be followed strictly. These direction must be followed too and same are reproduced hereafter:-
For a valid chain of custody, all items of evidence must be labeled with the following information:
· Name of victim or suspect.
· Case number.
· Type of specimen (i.e., Narcotic Plant material, narcotic medicines, Injections, cigarettes, used syringes, Chars, capsules, opium).
· Amount of sample.
· Time and date of collection. · Names, stamp, designation of person collecting the sample.
Finally, the sample collected must be sealed with molten wax seal to document specimen integrity.
A reference seal sample must be attached along with the packed sample.
Alternatively, all of the samples collected for a given case may be placed in a tamper-evident container labeled with the case number and name.
Crl. Appeal-94-17
NADEEM AKHTAR VS
STATE ETC
Mr. Justice Ali Zia Bajwa 13-10-2021
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