PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday expressed displeasure at the faulty investigation by the customs department officials in a narcotics trafficking case and asked the relevant authorities to conduct an inquiry and fix responsibility.

Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim ruled that the inquiry report should be submitted to the court within two months.

The bench issued the order while hearing criminal appeals of the two people sentenced to life imprisonment by the trial court in 2014.

While partially allowing the two appeals, the court reduced the prison terms of the two appellants to the period they had already undergone in the prison.

The appellants, including Izzat Khan and Mohammad Ismail, were arrested by the officials of customs department on Feb 9, 2012, near the Scheme Chowk in Peshawar when they were travelling in a truck.

Gives authorities two months to file report

The officials claimed they had recovered 800kg charas concealed in the truck.

They were convicted by an additional sessions judge on Jan 20, 2014, and were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Noor Alam Khan and Shahid Naseem Chamkani, lawyers for the appellants, pointed out flaws in the investigation, especially while sending samples collected from the seized contraband for chemical examination.

Noor Alam Khan had pointed out a day earlier that instead of collecting samples from all seized packets, the investigation agency had sent only a single sample of 10 grams for chemical examination.

He added that even the investigation agency had not mentioned the number of packets recovered by them.

The lawyer had referred to a larger Supreme Court bench’s judgment (PLD 2012 SC) and contended that the apex court had explained in clear terms the mechanism, which should be adopted by a drugs seizing agency.

He added that the agency should collect separate samples from all the packets to prove that the entire seized stock was contraband.

The lawyer pointed out that the apex court had directed that the said judgment should be sent to all the courts and agencies including the Anti-Narcotics Force and customs department.

The investigation officer told the court that he had only investigated the case, whereas thje collection of sample was the responsibility of the seizure officer.

He added that samples were taken from 800 packets.

The chief justice asked him to show on record where the number of packets were mentioned.

The IO could not offer any satisfactory reply to the queries put by the bench.

The bench observed that due to the connivance of officers with the accused persons, the benefit always went to the latter and then courts were blamed for the inefficiency or faulty probe of the investigating agency.

It added that to provide benefit to the accused, loopholes were deliberately left in cases by investigation officers.

The chief justice observed that if customs officials were not capable of investigating such cases, then why they had not been referring it to the police.

He observed that the sending of a single sample of 10 grams to forensic science laboratory clearly manifested the mala fide on part of the relevant officials.

Published in Dawn November 3rd, 2016