Delays, discrepancies led to druglord’s acquittal earlier

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu DGP Shankar Jiwal’s version that the drug case against wanted NCB suspect AR Jaffer Sadiq by Chennai police was closed in 2017 after acquittal could well be true. The devil, however, is in the details: Sadiq and four others arrested were acquitted because there was a four-month delay in submitting the seized drug to a forensic science laboratory for chemical analysis. There were other shortcomings as well, court records show.

Five persons – AR Jaffer Sadiq, J Nagoor Meeran, N Mohammed Ismail, A R Moideen Ghani and K Karthik – were arrested by the MKB Nagar Police under sections of the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act on Nov 11, 2013.

The prosecution’s case was that Sub Inspector A Vimalanathan received a tip-off about a group moving synthetic drugs and the SI along with head constable Gunasekaran and constables Karthik, Nirmal Kumar and Sivakumar went to apprehend the accused.

Two SUVs were parked near Dr Ambedkar College, and on seeing the police, the accused in one SUV tried to escape and hit a centre median and the vehicle turned turtle, said the deposition by SI Vimalanathan.

He further deposed that his team had seized 20 grams of ephedrine in two packets from the vehicles and Rs 1.01 lakh in cash, a laptop and an iPhone from Jaffer Sadiq.

The counsel for the accused, RC Paul Kanagaraj’s first line of defence was that the case was foisted by then MKB Nagar Inspector N Natarajan over his animosity with lawyers. “Since there were advocate stickers on one of the SUVs and after learning that the occupants were related to advocates, a false case was foisted,” he argued.

The counsel further pointed out other discrepancies in the paperwork, but the undoing was mostly by the police themselves, and the defence did not miss the chance to highlight them.

While SI Vimalanathan had deposed that constable P Karthik had recorded the tip-off in writing in the register as he had instructed, Karthik deposed that he was not aware of when the tip-off was recorded in writing. While the arrest and seizure were made on November 11, 2013, the seized samples were sent to court only on March 26, 2014, and for chemical analysis the next day.

The official at the Forensic Science Department, Srividya Srinivasan, had deposed that she received 3.8 gm of substance for analysis while the Inspector deposed that a 10-gram pouch was sent after submission in court. Additionally, constable Sadik Khan, who took the sample from the court for chemical analysis, was not made a witness in the case, the court noted.

Citing similar cases in high courts, Special Judge (in charge) K Ayyappan pointed out that there was no explanation from the Inspector about in whose possession the seized drug was kept in the intervening four months.

“Constable Sadik Khan, who took the samples to analysis, was not made part of the prosecution case. There is also a discrepancy in the sample size sent for analysis. All these severely make the prosecution’s case weak,” the Special Judge had observed.

On March 8, 2017, a special court for the NDPS Act cases in Chennai acquitted Jaffer Sadiq and four others as the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond doubt.

Sadiq, who is now under the Narcotics Control Bureau’s radar for his alleged role in an international drug cartel after a drug bust in New Delhi, is also wanted by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) for the smuggling of Ketamine to Malaysia. He was dismissed from his post as an office-bearer of the DMK’s NRI wing.