Coast Guards can’t prosecute anyone under narcotics law: SHC

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday said that the Pakistan Coast Guards (PCG) have no power to prosecute a person guilty of offences under the Control of Narcotic Substances (CNS) Act.

The court directed the PCG director general, the Anti-Narcotics Force DG and the Sindh police chief to ensure that prosecution by the PCG under the CNS Act is stopped immediately. They were ordered to submit a compliance report within a month through the inspection team member.

The court also ordered that the investigation and prosecution of all the pending cases registered by the PCG under Section 21(1) of the CNS Act should be assumed transferred to other agencies authorised to deal with the menace of narcotics and its trafficking in accordance with the CNS Act.

The direction came on an appeal of a convict who had challenged his trial and life imprisonment sentence awarded by the CNS Court. Abdul Rehman was sentenced to life in jail by the CNS Court on the basis of a charge sheet submitted by the PCG’s field intelligence unit.

According to the PCG’s prosecution, the appellant was arrested on December 27, 2013 on the Super Highway near the Toll Plaza and 100 kilograms of charas was recovered from the

vehicle he was driving.

The appellant’s counsel contended that the prosecution had falsely implicated his client in the case because there was hardly any evidence supporting his arrest with the contraband from the Toll Plaza on the Super Highway, except a statement of the complainant supported by only one of his subordinates.

He contended that the contents of the FIR did not show that the complainant, a Naib Subedar of the PCG, had received any information or had otherwise personal knowledge to

develop any suspicion to start secret surveillance near the Toll Plaza on the Super Highway and stop a particular truck.

He further contended that there was no Roznamcha entry of the departure of the complainant from the Coast Guards police station, and that every document had been prepared at the police station where the appellant was brought from the Sohrab Goth bus stop.

He said that three officers of the PCG had claimed to have arrested the appellant on the Super Highway near the Toll Plaza at 8:45pm, but no efforts were made to associate any private person or official of other government agencies generally available round the clock near the Toll Plaza on Super Highway to witness the recovery and arrest.

The PCG’s counsel contended that the coast guards were equally competent witnesses and their evidence could not be discarded unless shaken in cross-examination, so it was not necessary for the prosecution to collect further corroborative evidence against the appellant, and supported the trial court’s judgment.

After the perusal of the case evidences, an SHC division bench headed by Justice Nazar Akbar observed that the question about the circumstances that compelled the PCG commanding officer to conduct secret surveillance more than 28 kilometres away from the coastal line on the Super Highway remained unanswered.

The court observed that since the Super Highway is already under surveillance of the highway patrol police, the local police and the Pakistan Rangers, a complainant of the PCG stopped a suspicious truck under Section 23 of the CNS Act.

The court also observed that the complainant had not disclosed that how, when and why he suspected the particular truck, while he instantly appointed two subordinates as Mashirs to search the vehicle.

The court further observed that according to the FIR, the complainant took about two hours in the registration of the case that was lodged at the PCG’s Field Intelligence Unit when they reached there after travelling more than 28km from the place where the action was taken.

The bench said that the conviction of the appellant could not be maintained due to faulty inquiry coupled with the lack of corroborative evidence to connect the appellant with the charas allegedly recovered from the truck, and other several legal flaws in the prosecution case.

The court set aside the trial court’s order, declaring that the investigation conducted by the PCG and the filing of the charge sheet in the CNS Court was without jurisdiction and contrary to the requirements of the CNS Act.

The bench observed that the action taken by the PCG against the appellant after his arrest and the seizure of the charas, and even the trial conducted through a prosecutor nominated by the PCG was illegal, invalid from the outset and without lawful authority, so the entire trial was vitiated on account of being without jurisdiction.

The court observed that all the legal anomalies in the prosecution’s cases under the CNS Act by the PCG was an illegal practice that seemed to have not been noticed by the special court constituted under the CNS Act.