The Supreme Court acquitted two men convicted of possessing charas under the NDPS Act, holding that an unexplained five-day gap in the chain of custody of the samples, coupled with total non-compliance with Section 52-A, destroyed the integrity of the samples and rendered the forensic report unfit to be relied upon.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has acquitted two men who had been convicted and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act for possession of charas, holding that the prosecution failed to establish an unbroken chain of custody of the seized samples, and that the breach, together with a total failure to follow the mandatory procedure under Section 52-A of the Act, was fatal to the case [Abdul Rajik v. State of M.P.; Govind v. State of M.P.].
A Bench of Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Manmohan, in a judgment dated September 16, 2026, set aside the concurrent convictions recorded by a Special (NDPS) Court and affirmed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, extending the appellants the benefit of doubt and acquitting them.
The case
According to the prosecution, in November 2004 a police party in Jabalpur, acting on information, intercepted two men carrying bags near a road junction and recovered a black, wick-shaped substance suspected to be charas, one kilogram from the bag of Abdul Rajik and 800 grams from that of Govind. A field test was said to have been conducted by burning a small piece of the substance. Samples were drawn, the men were arrested, and an FIR was registered. The trial court convicted both, sentencing Abdul Rajik to 10 years and Govind to 8 years’ rigorous imprisonment with fines, and the High Court affirmed the convictions.
Notably, the two independent panch witnesses to the seizure had turned hostile and did not support the prosecution, which rested its case principally on the testimony of the police officials, in particular the inspector/seizure officer.
The broken chain of custody
The Court found the prosecution’s chain of custody, the documented, unbroken account of where the samples were and in whose hands, from seizure until testing, to be fundamentally compromised. It pointed to a stark, unexplained inconsistency: the forwarding letter from the office of the Superintendent of Police was dated December 1, 2004, whereas the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report recorded that the samples were received only on December 6, 2004. The prosecution offered no explanation whatsoever as to where, and in whose custody, the samples remained during those five days, and the constable said to have carried them was never examined as a witness.
The Court reiterated the settled requirement that, for an FSL report to be admitted in evidence, the prosecution must establish, through credible oral and documentary evidence, that the samples were properly sealed and remained in a safe and secure condition from the time of seizure until receipt at the laboratory. Relying on State of Rajasthan v. Tara Singh and Nadeem Ahamed v. State of West Bengal, it held that, given the severity of the penalties under the NDPS Act, questions of how and where the samples were stored and when they were dispatched and received “assume considerable significance,” and that an unexplained gap in custody compromises the sanctity of the samples and casts serious doubt on the prosecution case. Here, the Court held, “the link evidence has been totally breached,” leading to a “total collapse of the sanctity and integrity of the samples,” so that the FSL report had to be discarded.
Total non-compliance with Section 52-A
The Court also found a complete failure to follow Section 52-A of the NDPS Act, which provides a statutory mechanism to eliminate the possibility of investigational taint in the drawing of samples. Under that provision, the investigating agency must produce the seized contraband before a Magistrate, who causes representative samples to be drawn in his presence and certifies the inventory, photographs and list of samples, upon which those documents may be treated as primary evidence of the seized goods.
Drawing on Narcotics Control Bureau v. Kashif and Bharat Aambale v. State of Chhattisgarh, the Court clarified that mere procedural delay or minor lapses in complying with Section 52-A do not by themselves vitiate a trial or result in automatic acquittal, the test being whether the non-compliance caused prejudice to the accused. But it distinguished such minor lapses from the situation here, holding that “total non-compliance would definitely be a relevant factor” in assessing whether the samples were kept safe and secure. On the evidence, the Court found that no effort whatsoever had been made by the seizure officer to draw representative samples in the presence of a Magistrate, amounting to total non-compliance with the provision.
‘Burning a piece’ is no proof it was charas
With the FSL report excluded, the Court held that there was no other legally admissible evidence to prove that the seized substance was in fact charas within the meaning of the NDPS Act, an essential ingredient of the offence. It specifically rejected the seizure officer’s account that he had identified the substance as charas by burning a part of it at the spot, observing that there was no scientific material to establish that the identity of a contraband could be determined merely by burning a piece, and that such testimony could not, by itself, prove the nature of the substance.
In the absence of that foundational proof, the Court held that the prosecution had failed to establish an essential ingredient of the offence, and that the convictions could not be sustained. It set aside the concurrent judgments, acquitted both appellants, who were on bail and were told they need not surrender, and discharged their bail bonds.
Why the judgment matters
The judgment is a significant restatement of the evidentiary discipline that the NDPS Act demands of the prosecution, and of why that discipline matters given the stringency of the statute’s punishments. Because a conviction under the Act can attract long mandatory sentences, courts insist that the very foundation of the case, that the seized substance is a narcotic, and that the sample tested is the same one seized, be proved beyond doubt. The chain of custody and the Section 52-A safeguards are the mechanisms that guarantee this: they protect against tampering, substitution and investigational taint, and when they fail totally, as opposed to suffering a minor, non-prejudicial lapse, the forensic evidence loses its value and the prosecution collapses.
The decision is also a useful marker of the line the Supreme Court draws between curable and fatal procedural defects under the NDPS Act. Not every deviation results in acquittal; a minor delay that causes no prejudice will not. But a wholly unexplained five-day gap in custody, an un-examined carrier, and a complete failure to draw samples before a Magistrate together crossed the threshold from irregularity to a breach striking at the root of the case. For investigating agencies, the judgment is a pointed reminder that meticulous compliance with the sampling and custody procedure is not a formality but the bedrock on which an NDPS conviction stands or falls.
Case Title: Abdul Rajik v. State of M.P. [Criminal Appeal No. 1561 of 2014] with Govind v. State of M.P. [Criminal Appeal No. 1562 of 2014]
Bench: Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Manmohan
Citation: 2026 INSC 1001
Date of Judgment: September 16, 2026