Online Mail India: New Delhi: Wednesday, February 17, 2016.
The fight against the menace of drug abuse should not end with the seizure of narcotic drugs and prosecution of those involved in illegal trade, but with the destruction of the contraband drugs.
Though enforcement of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 may be effectively dealing with drug peddlers, the unnecessary stockpiling of drugs seized by authorities only raises fears of pilferage, leading to recirculation of drugs in the market again.
The fight against drugs aims to protect vulnerable groups from exposure to drugs rather than just punishing the peddlers, but reports sought by the Supreme Court recently revealed that lakhs of kilograms (kgs) of seized drugs were stored in a manner which left scope for theft, pilferage or replacement by unscrupulous people, within and outside of the system.
Though the court last week ordered the destruction of drugs unnecessarily lying in stores throughout the country even after the conclusion of trials and appeals, the authorities need to streamline the system of storage and destruction of such contraband drugs to prevent them mounting up in such huge quantities in future.
The destruction of drugs may be as important a task as enforcement of the law against peddlers.
With several states having more than one lakh kg of drugs in their custody, a bench presided over by Chief Justice TS Thakur noted that keeping seized drugs may “tempt the unscrupulous to indulge in pilferage and theft for sale or circulation in the market”.
The concern over likely pilferage, theft and replacement of pure drugs without detection may not be unwarranted. The greater the quantity in stocks, the more difficult monitoring and maintenance of stocks becomes.
The data says it all. The records submitted before the Supreme Court by Tamil Nadu showed it had destroyed 15 times the amount of cocaine it had seized in the last 10 years!
Rajasthan had destroyed more charas, Kerala more brown sugar, Haryana more heroine and opium, Chandigarh more ganja and hashish, and the Customs and Central Excise department had destroyed more ganja, hashish and opium than were seized in the last 10 years.
Looking at the fact that the Law Commission had identified “drug war” by other countries as one of the causes of the menace of drug abuse, the fight should only end with the destruction of seized drugs, which alone can frustrate the object behind illicit trafficking.
While the 1985 Act is often criticised by activists as too harsh, the focus of authorities has been on punishing those with drugs in their possession and not on implementation of provisions pertaining to the storage and subsequent destruction of seized drugs.
While a 1989 Standing Order issued by the Centre supplemented the law by prescribing the procedure for safe keeping and disposal of the seized drugs, only 16 per cent of the drugs and and narcotics seized between 2002 and 2012 had been disposed of.
The response by state governments to a query by the court revealed that no action had been initiated against any official in the country for not taking steps to destroy the contraband in accordance with the rules.
Section 52A, inserted subsequently through an amendment to provide for disposal of seized drugs, provides for certification by a magistrate after preparation of the inventory, photos and representative samples in his presence.
In what facilitates disposal of drugs without waiting for conclusion of trial, as per Section 52A(4) samples drawn and certified by the Magistrate would “constitute primary evidence for the purpose of the trial”.
Recording its displeasure over non-compliance of statutory framework on storage and disposal, the court observed that the menace of drugs had taken alarming dimensions in this country partly because of the ineffective and lackadaisical enforcement of the laws and procedures.
Several states were yet to have any designated storage facility for keeping seized drugs in terms of the Standing Order issued 26 years ago.
It is not that authorities concerned are not aware of the alarming dimensions and proportions of the menace. It is not the absence of law either. The problem lies with authorities not implementing the mandate of the law.
At a time when the government has come up with a model prison manual, one of the biggest challenges continues to be overcrowding of prisons.
According to NCRB, overcrowding in Central Jails and District Jails reached 121 per cent and 132 per cent, respectively, as of December 31, 2014.
The number of prisoners in Delhi was more than double the capacity of the jails.
Dadra & Nagar Haveli leads the list with 331.7 per cent, followed by Chhattisgarh with 258.9 per cent, and Delhi with 221.6 per cent.
Judiciary must act on pendency
At a time when pendency is shaking the confidence of litigants in the judiciary, courts need to be more transparent with data on pendency. The Supreme Court, however, has refused to enforce a Central Information Commission (CIC) order directing it to maintain data on pending judgments.
The Supreme Court on Monday turned down an appeal against a high court order holding that CIC had no power to issue such directions to the apex court.
With the court’s resistance to transparency already hurting its image, the court should on its own start maintaining data on the number of judgments reserved by it even if it does not want to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the CIC.
Section 4(1)(a) of the RTI Act enjoins every public authority to maintain records in a manner and the form, which would facilitate the right to information under the Act.
While resistance to RTI is a matter of separate debate, maintenance of data on pending judgments will only help when it comes to taking policy decisions on fighting pendency.
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