Legal Dictation from Original Judgment

Coming to the 4th and last point, the learned advocates for the petitioners vehemently submitted that the learned Session Judge in two of the present petitions have clearly misinterpreted the provision contained in Section 36- D of the Act which pertains to transitional provisions. It was further submitted that by virtue of the Session Courts have been specifically invested with special powers to take cognizance and conduct the trial under NDPS Act, and accordingly, till the time such special courts are constituted, the Session Courts for all practical purposes under the said Act are deemed to be the Special Courts and in that view of the matter, there was no question of any accused under Act having been committed to the Session Court without complying with the requirements contained in Section 209 of the Code, Making good these submissions, the learned advocates for the petitioners have invited attention of this Court first of all to Section 36 which speaks about ‘Constitution of the Special Courts by the Government for the purposes of providing speedy trial of the offences under the Act.’

Thereafter, attention of this Court was further invited to Section 36- A which directs the Special Courts to take cognizance of the offence upon the perusal of police report without the accused being committed to it for trial. Thereafter, attention of this Court was further invited to the said Act which as stated above pertains to the transitional provisions, that is to say, till the time Special Courts are constituted under Section 36 of the said Act, offences under the NDPS Act were required to be tried by the Courts of Session.

On the basis of above, it was further submitted that looking to the scheme of the NDPS Act and the relevant provisions under Sections 36 they are indeed clear enough to indicate that the cases under the said Act are to be conducted by the Special Courts under Section 36 and for that purpose, similarly by virtue of Section 36-A the committal proceedings were dispensed with, Thus, till the time Special Courts are constituted by the State Government, Session Courts have been invested with the powers of “Special Courts” by virtue of Section 36-A, hence the question of committing the accused to the Court of Session clearly stands dispensed with. In support of this contention, the learned advocates for the petitioners have relied upon decision of Kerala High Court rendered in Criminal Reference No. 2, reported in 1992, Drugs Cases.