High Court of Punjab and HaryanaCRM-M/28067/2021allowed

Sunil v. State Of Haryana

2021-11-02Mr. Justice B.S. Walia9 pages

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1) $("4"%7#"#% "%+ +#") I "/ Nirmal Singh Pehlwan @ Nimma vs. Inspector Customs, Customs House, Punjab (SC), 2011 (3) RCR (Crl.) 831 a case involving search before a Gazetted Officer in terms of option given to accused to be searched before a Gazetted Officer or Magistrate without informing the accused of his right to be searched in the presence of a Gazetted Officer or a Magistrate, Hon'ble the Supreme Court held that a consent memo could not be said to be information conveyed to an accused as to his right under Section 50 of the Act in view of the decision of the Constitution Bench in Vijaisingh Chandu Bha Jadeja's case (supra) and since the provisions of Section 50 of the Act were mandatory and strict compliance was called for, any deviation

CD therefrom would vitiate the prosecution. Relevant extract of the same is reproduced as under :

"7. We have examined the facts of the case in the light of the arguments raised by the learned counsel for the parties and the case law cited. Ext. P.A. is the consent memo under which the appellant had opted to be searched in the presence of a Gazetted officer. This memo is in the Gurmukhi script and has been read to us and we see that it cannot by any stretch of imagination be said to be informing the appellant of his right to be searched in the presence of a Gazetted Officer or a Magistrate as he was only given the option to be searched before one of the other.

Thereafter, Hon'ble the Supreme Court referred to the question considered in Vijaisingh Chandu Bha Jadeja's case (supra) by the Constitution Bench as also the answer to the same and as have been reproduced in the preceding part of this order and allowed the appeal against conviction on account of non compliance with Section 50 NDPS Act as well as confession made to a Customs Officer being hit by Section 25, Evidence Act by observing as under "8. It is therefore apparent that the precise question that was before the Constitution Bench was as to whether a consent memo could be said to be information conveyed to an accused as to his right under Section 50 of the Act.

The Constitution Bench clearly stated that a consent memo could not be said to be such information as the provisions of Section 50 of the Act were mandatory and strict compliance was called for and any deviation therefrom would vitiate the prosecution.

CD held that it was not necessary that this information should be in a written form but the information had to be conveyed in some form or manner which would depend on the facts of the case. We have accordingly gone through the evidence of PW.4 Prem Singh. He did not utter a single word as to whether he had informed the appellant of his right and he merely took his option as to whether he would like to be searched before a Gazetted Officer or a Magistrate as noted in Ex.P.A. In the light of the judgment in Vijaisingh's case (supra) we find that there has been complete non- compliance with the provisions of Section 50 of the Act. "

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