Gujarat High Court asks State to set up more special courts to hear NDPS Act cases

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday called for setting up more special courts for hearing cases arising under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) [Mahebubbhai Osmanbhai Theba and Others v. State of Gujarat]..A division bench of Justices AS Supehia and Vimal Vyas suggested the State government to consider issuing notification in this regard at the earliest. It noted that in 2015, the State had notified special NDPS courts for four metropolitan cities of Gujarat. However, at present, there is only one such court that is functioning, the Bench noted."Data is presented before the Court regarding NDPS Cases pendency. Considering that we only have 1 special court to handle NDPS matters, the doctrine of speedy trial is vitiated as given by the Supreme Court. Until and unless there are more special courts being specifically designated by notification from State Government , we won't be able to solve this problem. More courts are needed," the Court observed..The Court made these observation while hearing a criminal appeal moved by a man against his conviction under the NDPS Act. In this case, the accused-appellant had argued that since his trial under NDPS Act had not been conducted by a designated special court but by some other Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) of a normal court, the judgment given by the latter was not valid since it was without jurisdiction.The jurisdiction to hear such matters vests exclusively with the special court under NDPS Act, it was argued.On the other hand, the prosecutor argued that all ASJs would have the same power and there was no procedural lapse as alleged by the appellant..The Court categorically stated that one special court in Gujarat is not enough to deal with all NDPS cases. "We suggest that a notification is required to be issued by the State government to ensure that more special courts are designated for cases under NDPS Act," the Court stated.The Court therefore granted time to the prosecutor to find some solution to the said issue..[Read Tweet]