Case law

Supreme Court of India · 17 Apr 2025

Directorate Of Revenue Intelligence vs Raj Kumar Arora

Legal principle

Dealing in a psychotropic substance listed in the Schedule to the NDPS Act is punishable under Section 8 of the NDPS Act even if the substance is not enumerated in Schedule I of the NDPS Rules, and the interpretation in Sanjeev V. Deshpande applies retrospectively without violating Article 20(1), save that final acquittals already recorded under Rajesh Kumar Gupta stand protected.

Court decision

The Supreme Court allowed both appeals and set aside the High Court's orders. It held that dealing in Buprenorphine Hydrochloride is an offence under Section 8 of the NDPS Act even though the substance appears only in the Schedule to the Act and not in Schedule I of the NDPS Rules; that the interpretation in Sanjeev V. Deshpande operates retrospectively (though acquittals already recorded under Rajesh Kumar Gupta and attaining finality will not be unsettled), with no Article 20(1) impediment; and that a Trial Court cannot delete a charge or discharge the accused while dealing with an application under Section 216 CrPC. The accused, not having been acquitted, were directed to be tried by the Special Judge, NDPS, and the Trial Courts were directed to conclude the trials expeditiously.

Facts

DRI headquarters received information that illegally manufactured injectable Buprenorphine was stored at a Delhi office premises of Raj Kumar Arora, a customs clearing agent and proprietor of M/s Kanishka Cargo Service. Acting on search authorisation under Section 41 of the NDPS Act, officers recovered 40,000 unlabelled glass ampoules (plus one labelled ampoule) of Buprenorphine Hydrochloride, a substance listed in the Schedule to the NDPS Act, and seized them as the respondent produced no licence or permission; the same day, Central Excise officers seized 23,400 Buprenorphine injections and 100 grams of the powder from M/s Win Drugs Ltd. at Jind, Haryana. Statements recorded under summons indicated a conspiracy among the respondents and Naresh Mittal for illegal manufacture, storage, transport, sale and purchase of Buprenorphine Hydrochloride, and the respondents were arrested for offences under Sections 22 and 29 of the NDPS Act. The Trial Courts, holding that no offence under Sections 8/22/29 (and 8(c)/22(c)) was made out because Buprenorphine did not figure in Schedule I of the NDPS Rules, 1985, deleted the NDPS charge and transferred the cases to the Metropolitan Magistrate for proceedings under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and the Delhi High Court upheld those orders, prompting these appeals by DRI.

Key provisions