PESHAWAR: A full bench of the Supreme Court at the Peshawar registry on Friday dismissed on technical grounds two federal government appeals against the commuting of the sentences of two drug pushers by the Peshawar High Court.

At the same time, it expressed displeasure over the faulty investigation into the relevant drug trafficking case by the customs intelligence branch and the delay in the filing of appeals.

The bench comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman and Justice Umar Ata Bandial observed that the criminal appeals were time barred as the judgment of the high court, which was challenged through these appeals, was delivered over a year ago.

Justice Asif Saeed Khosa observed that while the suspects were charged for smuggling 4,350kg of charas, the customs intelligence had sent only a sample of 10 grams for chemical examination which showed that the investigators had acted with partiality in favour of suspects.

Full bench voices displeasure over faulty probe into drug trafficking case

Justice Khosa observed that when the high court decided the appeals of the convicts, the government instead of challenging it before the Supreme Court filed a review petition in the high court which was also dismissed and that also helped convicts as by the time these appeals were filed before the Supreme Court, they were time barred.

Justice Ata Bandial also observed that if the customs intelligence continued to investigate cases in such faulty manners, then the cases pertaining to smuggling of huge quantity of contraband would face the same fate.

In the instant case, the customs intelligence had claimed that its personnel had recovered 4,350kg of charas from secret cavities of an oil tanker and had arrested two persons present in it who were identified as Gul Mast and Khyal Zaman on Apr 29, 2011, in Nowshera district.Subsequently, they also arrested Nasir Khan. They were charged under section 9-C of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act.

The special judge (control of narcotics) convicted them in Sept 2012.

The court sentenced Gul Mast and Khyal Zaman to life imprisonment with fine of Rs100,000 each, whereas Nasir was sentenced to two years imprisonment.

Khyal Zaman and Gul Mast had filed appeals before the high court and a two-member bench partially allowed it in June 2013.

The bench had commuted their prison terms to the period which they had already spent in prison, which were almost 26 months and reduced fine from Rs100,000 to Rs10,000.

Similarly, the government had filed appeal before high court for enhancing sentence of Nasir Khan, which was also dismissed.

From the recovered stuff, which was in the shape of packets, the investigation team had separated only a small quantity from each packet and mixed it together, out of the mixture three samples, each weighing 10 grams were separated of which one sample was sent to Forensic Science Laboratory for chemical analysis, the second sample was kept in the office record while the third one was deposited in the State Warehouse.

The high court bench had observed that the record was silent about the number of packets recovered from the tanker and the weight of each of those packets was also not known.

The bench had further observed that under the law, the prosecution was under obligation to have first weighed every packet and then separated a small quantity from each packet, properly sealed and marked them for chemical analysis.

It added that in this case the said legal requirements had not been complied with and therefore, it could not be said that the sample sent to FSL for analysis was a representative sample.

The government instead of challenging the PHC verdict before the apex court filed review petition in the high court and by the time, it was dismissed the time limit provided under the law for filing of appeal before the apex court had already expired.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2014