PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday set aside the conviction of a person by a subordinate court and acquitted him in a case of narcotics trafficking.

A bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mussarat Hilali accepted the appeal of Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Nowshera, against his sentence after hearing arguments by his lawyer and the Anti-Narcotics Force special prosecutor.

The appellant was arrested by the ANF officials on March 12, 2011, while he was travelling in a car on the Indus Highway near Kohat.

The ANF claimed it recovered 36kg charas from the secret cavities in the car’s petrol tank.

A lab with no jurisdiction in KP tested samples of ‘seized drugs’

The appellant was charged under Section 9-C of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act.

A special judge (control of narcotics) convicted the appellant in Sept 2011 and sentenced him to life imprisonment with Rs50,000 fine.

The appellant’s lawyer, Noor Alam Khan, said samples of the allegedly seized contraband were sent to the Punjab Forensic Science Laboratory, Rawalpindi, instead of sending them to the notified laboratories in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which showed the mala fide intent on part of the ANF.

The lawyer said under Section 34 of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act, the federal government notified the names of the testing laboratories for each region.

He said under the same section, the provincial government also notified the names of laboratories.

Noor Alam said in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the federally-notified laboratory was the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), whereas the provincial government’s notified laboratory was the FSL Peshawar.

He said a chemical analyst having no jurisdiction in an area or regarding a particular drug could not examine a seized contraband.

“How could an analyst having jurisdiction in Rawalpindi examine a sample seized in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? After the passage of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010, the issue has become clearer and narcotics recovered in one province can’t be examined in the other province,” he said.

An ANF prosecutor said as the notified laboratories in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa charged fee higher than that of Rawalpindi’s laboratory, the ANF preferred sending samples to the latter.

He said the appellant was caught red-handed travelling in the car with contraband.

The prosecutor said the appellant didn’t deserve leniency on the basis of minor discrepancies in the case.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2015

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