Chapter: 8.2 Offences and Penalties of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances

Offences and Penalties

Chapter IV, (Sections 15 to 40) sets out the penalties for offences under the Act. These offences are essentially related to violations of the various prohibitions imposed under the Act on the cultivation, production, manufacture, distribution, sale, import and export etc. of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. All these offences are triable by Special Courts and the punishments prescribed range from imprisonment from 10 to 20 years for first offences to 15 to 30 years for any subsequent offences together with monetary fines. In addition to persons directly involved in trafficking narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, any person who finances trafficking or harbours a person involved in trafficking, or abets, or is a party to a criminal conspiracy, including a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence outside India, is also liable to the same scale of punishments. The Act was amended in May 1989 to mandate the death penalty for second offences relating to contraventions involving more than certain quantities of specified narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

The Act, however, makes a distinction between possession for personal consumption and trafficking, the punishment for the former being limited to between six months and one year only. The application of this provision is subject to the following two qualifications:

i) The quantity of the drug involved in the offence should be a small quantity as specified by the Central Government.
ii) The onus is on the accused to establish that the drug in question was meant for personal consumption and not for sale, distribution etc

It needs to be noted, however, that while the powers to search, seize, arrest etc., are inherent in the Act, all these are subject to both the substantive and procedural safeguards mandated by the Code of Criminal Procedure, in relation, inter-alia, to the presence of independent witnesses at a search, the drawing up of search lists or panchanamas, and the constitutional obligation to produce an arrested person before a Judge within 24 hours etc.