Section 15 NDPS Act - No Other Test Necessary If It Is Established That Seized 'Poppy Straw' Contains Morphine & Meconic Acid : Supreme Court

Once a Chemical Examiner establishes that the seized 'poppy straw' indicates a positive test for the contents of 'morphine' and 'meconic acid', it is sufficient to establish that it is covered by the Section 2(xvii)(a) of the  Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, the Supreme Court held in a judgment delivered today.

The bench comprising Justices BR Gavai and CT Ravikumar observed that no further test would be necessary for establishing that the seized material is a part of 'papaver somniferum L'.

"Once it is established that the seized 'poppy straw' tests positive for the contents of 'morphine' and 'meconic acid', no other test would be necessary for bringing home the guilt of the accused under the provisions of Section 15 of the 1985 Act", the Court held. 

In this case, the accused was allegedly involved in the illicit trading of 'poppy straw' and that she had kept huge quantity of 'poppy straw' in the room where fodder for the cattle had been stacked. After search and seizure, samples were sent to the Chemical Examiner, who opined that the samples contained contents of 'poppy husk'. The Trial Court convicted her under Section 15(c) of the NDPS Act for possessing commercial quantity of 'poppy straw'. In appeal, the High Court took a view that two tests conducted by the Chemical Examiner to ascertain whether the samples contained 'meconic acid' and 'morphine' did not indicate that the stuff examined consisted of the parts of either the plant of the species of the 'papaver somniferum L' or a plant of any other pieces of 'papaver' from which 'opium' or any other 'phenanthrene alkaloid' can be extracted and which the Central Government had notified to be 'opium poppy' for the purposes of the NDPS Act. Allowing the appeal, the High Court  held that the two tests cannot be sufficient evidence to hold that the stuff recovered from the accused, the sample of which was analysed by the Chemical Examiner, was 'poppy straw'.

So the issue considered by the Apex Court in appeal was this : Whether it is sufficient for the prosecution to establish that the raw material contains 'morphine' and 'meconic acid' to bring it under sub-clause (a) of Clause (xvii) of Section 2 of the 1985 Act or is it necessary for the prosecution to further establish that, though the seized material contains 'morphine' and 'meconic acid', the genus of the seized material is 'papaver somniferum L' or any other species of 'papaver' from which 'opium' or any 'phenanthrene alkaloid' can be extracted and which is notified in the Official Gazette by the Central Government to be 'opium poppy' for the purposes of the 1985 Act?

Disagreeing with the High Court view, the bench observed that once it is established that the seized material contains 'meconic acid' and 'morphine', it will be sufficient to establish that it is derived from the plant 'papaver somniferum L' as defined in sub-clause (a) of Clause (xvii) of Section 2 of the 1985 Act. While allowing the appeal, the court observed:

"We fail to understand as to how a Chemical Examiner could be asked whether the seized material was a part of any other species of 'papaver' from which 'opium' or any other 'phenanthrene alkaloid' could be extracted when there is no such species of 'papaver' which has been notified by the Central Government to be 'opium poppy' for the purpose of the 1985 Act.. In the result, we hold that, once a Chemical Examiner establishes that the seized 'poppy straw' indicates a positive test for the contents of 'morphine' and 'meconic acid', it is sufficient to establish that it is covered by subclause (a) of Clause (xvii) of Section 2 of the 1985 Act and no further test would be necessary for establishing that the seized material is a part of 'papaver somniferum L'. In other words, once it is established that the seized 'poppy straw' tests positive for the contents of 'morphine' and 'meconic acid', no other test would be necessary for bringing home the guilt of the accused under the provisions of Section 15 of the 1985 Act."

Case details

State of Himachal Pradesh vs Nirmal Kaur @ Nimmo | 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 866 | CrA 956 OF 2012 | 20 October 2022 | Justices BR Gavai and CT Ravikumar

Counsel: AAG Abhinav Mukerji for appellant- State, Sr. Adv Neeraj Jain for respondent, Adv K. Parameshwar as amicus curiae.

Headnotes

Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 ; Section 15 - Once a Chemical Examiner establishes that the seized 'poppy straw' indicates a positive test for the contents of 'morphine' and 'meconic acid', it is sufficient to establish that it is covered by subclause (a) of Clause (xvii) of Section 2 of the 1985 Act and no further test would be necessary for establishing that the seized material is a part of 'papaver somniferum L'. In other words, once it is established that the seized 'poppy straw' tests positive for the contents of 'morphine' and 'meconic acid', no other test would be necessary for bringing home the guilt of the accused under the provisions of Section 15 of the 1985 Act. (Para 91)

Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 ; Section 15 - For bringing home the guilt of the accused, it will be necessary to establish that the seized material collected is any part of 'opium poppy' except the seeds. (Para 29)

Interpretation of Statutes - Purposive Interpretation - While interpreting the provisions of the statute, the court has to prefer an interpretation which advances the purpose of the statute - Even in relation to a penal statute, any narrow and pedantic, literal and lexical construction may not always be given direct effect and the interpretation has to be preferred with regard to the subject matter of the offence and the object of law it seeks to achieve.  (Para 66-80)

Interpretation of Statutes - Heydon's/Mischief Rule - Referred to Bengal Immunity Company Limited v. State of Bihar [1955] 2 SCR 603. (Para 53)

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