Trial vitiated if accused under NDPS Act unaware of right: SC

All the criminal proceedings against an accused arrested under the Narcotics Drug and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act would be vitiated if the police officer had failed to tell the suspect about his right to be searched only in the presence of a gazetted officer or a magistrate, the Supreme Court has held.
 

A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said though ignorance of law could not be a defence in a criminal case, it was too much to expect people in certain circumstances to know their rights and exercise them.

“We notice that this fact is also within the knowledge of the legislature, possibly for that reason the legislature in its wisdom imposed an obligation on the authorised officer acting under Section 50 of the NDPS Act to inform the suspect of his right under Section 50 to be searched in the presence of a gazetted officer or a magistrate,” the bench said.

“Ignorance does not normally afford any defence under the criminal law, since a person is presumed to know the law. Indisputably, ignorance of law often exists in reality though, as a general proposition, it is true that knowledge of law must be imputed to every person. But it must be too much to impute knowledge in certain situations, for example, we cannot expect a rustic villager, totally illiterate, a poor man on the street, to be aware of the various laws laid down in this country,” the bench added.

The court clarified the legal proposition while exonerating Ashok Kumar Sharma, a Jaipur resident, who was awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment with Rs 1 lakh fine, for allegedly possessing 344 gms of a contraband drug. A special court had held Sharma guilty.

The Rajasthan High Court upheld his conviction as well as sentence. In his appeal before the apex court, Sharma contended that the special court as well as the high court ignored the fact that the Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Crime, who arrested him, had not complied with the provision of Section 50 of the NDPS Act.  

Statement

Referring to the statement recorded by the ASP, the court noted that he had only informed the accused that he could be searched before any Magistrate or a gazetted officer if he so wished. The fact that the accused person has a right under Section 50 of the NDPS Act to be searched before a Gazetted Officer or a Magistrate was not made known to him, it added.