CHENNAI: Procedural lapses and lack of evidence to back conspiracy charges have led to the acquittal of a techie and his friend who were accused of procuring and selling narcotic drugs like ecstasy, LSD, and cocaine. A city court earlier this week binned the charges by police that the techie had conspired with his friend in Jolarpet to sell the drugs after procuring them through the darknet.
Though the cops arrested one of the accused red-handed with the drugs at a bus stand, they did not produce any evidence to back their charge of conspiracy between the two to procure the drugs and sell them, the trial court said in its August 21 order acquitting them.
The case filed by cops attached to the SRMC police station was that on August 23, 2022, they arrested Arukumar (31) from the Mugalivakkam bus stand on the Porur-Guindy road, while in possession of nine LSD stamps, five ecstasy (MDMA) pills and 13.5g of cocaine. They took his voluntary confession which stated that his friend Navin (30) from Jolarpet had procured it through the darknet and gave it to him for money. Navin was arrested by the cops later.
However, during trial, the special NDPS court judge pointed out that the police had not even done basic due diligence to prove their charges. For instance, they had seized mobile phones from both the accused, but it wasn’t sent for forensic analysis to extract any details that could prove the conspiracy charge.
This was important as it was the police’s charge that Navin had bought the drugs from the darknet because Arunkumar had asked him to. “No linking materials were produced by the prosecution to show that both accused were in contact during the relevant period,” the judge said in the order.
Apart from this, the court found procedural flaws in the investigation like mention of crime number and the sections under which the accused was charged in the seizure mahazar, which is prepared at the spot of recovery prior to registration of the case. The judge also noted that though Arunkumar was caught red-handed with the drugs, the search and seizure were not done according to the NDPS Act, which led to the conclusion that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove the charges.