Law: Control of Narcotic Substances Act (XXV of 1997)

Section: 9

1. Control of Narcotic Substances Act (XXV of 1997)---

----S. 9---Possession of narcotic---Safe custody and transmission of samples--Significance---In the cases under Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997, it is the duty of the prosecution to establish each and every step from the stage of recovery, making of sample parcels, safe custody of sample parcels and safe transmission of the sample parcels to the concerned laboratory---This chain has to be established by the prosecution and if any link is missing, the benefit of the same has to be extended to the accused---Prosecution is under a bounded responsibility to drive home the charge against an accused by proving each limb of its case that essentially includes production of the witness tasked with the responsibility of transmitting the samples to the office of Chemical Examiner and failure to do the same can cast away the entire prosecution case.

Javed Iqbal v. The State 2023 SCMR 139; Mst. Sakina Ramzan v. The State 2021 SCMR 451; Qaiser Khan v. The State 2021 SCMR 363; Abdul Ghafoor v. The State 2022 SCMR 819; Muhammad Shoaib v. The State 2022 SCMR 1006; Khair ul Bashar v. The State 2019 SCMR 930; The State v. Imran Bakhsh 2018 SCMR 2039; Taimoor Khan v. The State 2016 SCMR 621; Ikram Ullah v. The State 2015 SCMR 1002 and Amjad Ali v. The State 2012 SCMR 577 ref.