By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: In the recent years during the massive campaign against the narcotics especially Ganja (also known as Cannabis/ Marijuana/ weeds) and Brown sugar (also known as Heroin/ smack) by Odisha police, there has been huge piling up of seized narcotic drugs. As the trial of narcotics cases takes time, these seized drugs remain stocked at police stations/ court Malkhanas exposed to all kind of vulnerabilities.
The piling up of seized drugs has been a cause of concern and honorable Supreme Court in the case of Union of India Vrs. Mohanlal & others passed a detailed order on disposal/destruction of seized drugs especially emphasizing on pre-trial disposal of seized drugs.
However because of some procedural and technical ambiguity/ issues, seized drugs could not be disposed of. In this backdrop, STF approached the Hon’ble High Court of Odisha with a prayer for certain direction/ order to resolve the issues/ hindrances involved in disposing of the seized drugs.
Finally on 31.01.2022, Hon’ble HighCourt of Odisha pleased to pass a land mark judgment directing the Sub-ordinate courts to dispose the applications filed U/s. Sec.52A of NDPS Act, 1985 issuing a detailed SOP for pre-trial disposal of seized drugs. Accordingly, steps have been taken by Odisha Police for pre -disposal of drugs. During this month on the decision of Drug Disposal Committee of the districts i.e. Kandhamal, Malkangiri, Angul,Koraput and STF huge quantity of contraband Ganja i.e. 3270 kg ( 32 Qtl. 70 kg ) have been disposed/destructed at the designated incinerators following all due procedure, which were seized in 11 cases from the possession of accused persons in different cases under NDPS Act.
The seized drugs was first authenticated/ certificated by concerned courts and handed over to Drug disposal committee for the disposal/ destruction. It is worthwhile to mention here that STF has already destructed /disposed of more than 8.5Kg Brown as per Sec.52 A of NDPS Act, 1985 in the month of June, 2022.It is further worthwhile to mention here that another many cases are under process (both at STF and district police level) for disposal/ destruction. It is expected that most of the seized drugs will be destructed within 3-6 months.
