Meow Meow Case: NDPS court rejects police plea to re-test drug sample

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While opposing the application, defence lawyers Jayesh Wani and Ayaz Khan claimed that the prosecution’s application has not stated the extremely exceptional circumstances for the re-testing and re-sampling of seized drug and merely mentioned that that the present report “is not in favor of the prosecution.”

Also citing a Supreme Court judgment, Wani and N Gawankar, another lawyer appearing for the defense, argued that re-testing of samples was only allowed in exceptional cases and that the appeal was to be filed within 15 days of receiving the first chemical report. The FSL had prepared its final report on May 2, and the crime branch had received it on May 13, while the crime branch filed its application on May 29.

“As per the available records in this matter, the police deliberately hid the date of receiving the said report. Question arising from this hiding of fact from court is — why the police had done such kind of misconduct? And the answer is that police want to manage the date of receipt of the said report as per their convenience to avoid question/difficulty of limitation for application for re-testing (sic),” the defense submitted in its written arguments.

When contacted, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Atulchandra Kulkarni said, “We will study the court’s order first and then decide further course of action.”

Crime Branch sources said that even the question of whether or not they could appeal against the court’s decision in a higher court depended on the content of the court order, as the observations of the court will make it clear whether or not there is scope for appeal.

Kalokhe and Patankar are still in judicial custody in connection with the case filed against them by the Satara police, who had also seized 112 of the same substance in Kalokhe’s Lonavala residence. This substance, too, was certified as ajinomoto by the Pune FSL.

mumbai.newsline@expressindia.coms