Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Sept 20: High Court today rejected the bail application of charas smugglers with the observation that they have completed a sentence of more than 5 years only and not 10 years.
“The judicial pronouncements of the law cited by the counsel for the appellants/petitioners do not come to the assistance of the petitioners in carving out a case for admitting them to bail. Therefore, the application entails dismissal and it is accordingly dismissed”, court of Justice M K Hanjura recorded.
Justice Hanjura further directed Registrar Judicial to place the appeal of accused before the Chief Justice for seeking further directions from him about the listing of the same before an appropriate Bench having roster, so that the same can be heard and decided finally with utmost dispatch.
The accused Nazir Ahmad and Abdul Aziz, were arrested by the police while checking a car in 2012 and 18 packets of charas were recovered as a consequence of which a case bearing FIR No. 39/2012, for the commission of an offences under Section 8 read with Section 20, NDPS Act, was registered at Police Station, Udhampur, with which the investigation commenced.
These packets contained charas in the form of balls, 380 in number, weighing, 33 Kgs and 500 grams and after the culmination of the investigation of the case, a chargesheet in terms of Section 173 Cr. PC was laid against the accused before the Court of Principal District Judge, Udhampur, who in turn transferred the same to the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Udhampur.
The accused were charged for the commission of the offence and were convicted and sentenced on May 2-13 to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and also to pay fine of Rs. 1.00 lakh, each, in default whereof, they were directed to undergo further imprisonment of 2 years.
“A commercial quantity of charas has been recovered from the appellants/accused for which the minimum period of punishment is rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 10 years and this punishment can be stretched further to a period of 20 years”, Justice Hanjura said.
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