Police ‘facilitating’ acquittals

For the first time Home Department has come out in open criticism of the inefficiency of State Police in tackling the endemic menace of Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. The NDPS Act provides stringent action against drug pedlars and their accomplices as a serious threat to public health and social welfare in the State. The Home Department has pointedly referred to a number of discrepancies that recurrently happen in cases of drugs and narcotics seizures and the aftermath of seizing action by the police authorities. Its main concern is that despite the fact the Anti-Narcotic Act clearly lays down Government’s policy of dealing with this crime with utmost severity, the police have shown lack of innovative capability of tracking down the evil and uprooting the same lock, stock and barrel.
A big concern of the Home Department is that there are about nine acquittals against one conviction when the entire spectrum of seizures and conviction of drug paddlers is taken into account. In its opinion, the discrepancy essentially lies at the level of Police Department that fails to provide all the necessary proof in a court of law when the drug paddling cases come up for hearing. The Home Department has focused on the seizures of illicit drugs and narcotics, the quantity seized and produced before the judicial authorities for verification, the chemical composition of the stuff seized, the possibility of changing the chemical composition of the samples and so many other possibilities that are imagined to scuttle the enforcement of punitive punishment for the crime. For all these possibilities, the police is to bear the onus because the entire case right from the moment of seizure to the delivery of the judgment in a court of law is handled by the police. The question is simple why are there 9 acquittals against one conviction? This is a question which the police shall have to answer. No organization knows the dangers of narcotic acquittals better than police.
The Home Department has now suggested some remedial measures. In the first place State High Court in a PIL titled “Court on its own motion Versus State and Others” is monitoring the progress of steps taken by the State to ensure that in NDPSA cases the investigation is conducted in a proper and professional manner by adhering to the mandatory provisions of the Act in order to minimize the acquittals. The entire focus is on investigation process more than anything else. Home Department recently directed the State Crime Branch to prepare Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs) to be followed in NDPSA cases. Now, the Home Secretary has issued directions to the Director General of Police, Inspector General of Police Kashmir/Jammu, all SSPs and SPs to strictly adhere to the SOPs prepared by the Crime Branch, the copies of which have also been sent to these officers.
It is satisfying that the Home Department has taken a very serious view of discrepancies in the enforcement of the anti-drug Act. People will feel happy about it especially those whose wards have become the victims of narcotic addiction. But the apprehension is that whether the police authorities will seriously respond to the censure and the guidelines that the department provides to them. The police have to act and convince the people that they understand and discharge their official and moral duty towards the society.

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