[NDPS Act] No Infirmity If Forensic Lab Directly Gives Chemical Report To Trial Court, All Involved In Criminal Trial Must Reduce Delay: Calcutta HC

The Calcutta High Court has held that there can be no infirmity in the trial of an NDPS case if the forensic laboratory sends the chemical report directly to the trial court instead of it being submitted as part of the supplementary chargesheet by the investigating agency.

A division bench of Justices Arijit Banerjee and Apurba Sinha Ray held that just because the report was sent directly to the trial court, the trial would not stand vitiated and that everyone involved in the criminal justice system should endeavour to prevent delay, since in this case a substantial amount of time had been saved by directly sending the report to the court instead of routing it through the police.

"The action of the laboratory by sending the report directly to the court can be viewed as an effort on the part of the laboratory to reduce the 'systemic' delay which usually occurs in our courts. It is the duty of everyone involved in the matters of criminal investigation to reduce the systemic delay as far as practicable. The petitioner is unable to show that such direct transmission of the report to the Learned Trial Court along with a report sent to the concerned police officer causes any prejudice or harm to him," the Court said.

The petitioner claims that he was arrested on 21.02.2024 with some contraband articles being commercial quantities and a charge sheet was filed without FSL Report on 16.08.2024. 180 days expired from his arrest on 19.08.2024 and the chemical examiner directly sent the Forensic Science Laboratory Report ('the FSL Report') to the Trial Court on 26.09.2024 and the present petitioner filed a statutory bail application on 27.09.2024.

Counsel for the petitioner stated that the FSL Report cannot be directly sent to the Trial Court by the chemical examiner and the same cannot automatically become part of the charge sheet. The counsel submitted that according to section 190(1)(b) of Cr.P.C. the Trial Court may take cognizance of any offence on the basis of police report. Section 173(2)(i) of Cr.P.C. prescribes that as soon as the investigation is complete, the officer-in-charge shall forward the report to the Magistrate for taking cognizance of the offence on a police report as per the form prescribed by the State Government.

The counsel submitted that as the I.O. has failed to submit a complete charge sheet within the statutory period, the petitioner is entitled to bail in view of settled judicial precedents.

The Public Prosecutor has vehemently opposed the prayer for bail. According to him, no prejudice is caused to the petitioner as the chemical examiner's report was directly sent to the Trial Court. Public Prosecutor referred to section 190(1)(c) of the Criminal Procedure Code wherein the concerned Magistrate has been empowered to take cognizance of an offence upon information received from any person other than a police officer or upon his own knowledge that such offence has been commenced. Therefore, according to the public prosecutor, as the court has the authority to take cognizance of receipt of some information from any person other than a police officer, in this case, there was no illegality in receiving the chemical examiner's report directly from the laboratory concerned on 26.09.2024.  

Accordingly, in acknowledging the points raised by the public prosecutor and rejecting the plea of the petitioners' counsel, the court noted that even though the report was sent directly to the trial court by the chemical examiner, the same did not cause any prejudice to the petitioner.

It was held that the endeavour of all parties should be to reduce delay in criminal cases, which had been done by the chemical examiner in this case. Accordingly, the plea for bail was dismissed. 

Case: Delwar Sk. @ Delwar Seikh Vs. The State of West Bengal

Case No: CRM (NDPS) 1627 of 2024

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