Chennai court hands 12 years jail to trio for possession of 60 kg ganja

CHENNAI: Three persons arrested by the Elephant Gate police with 60 kg ganja in 2022 were sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by a special court on Friday.

The convicted persons were D Mohan Kumar (43), JK Stanly (28) - both from Dindigul district - and Peruri Seenu (33) of East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh. The court also slapped a total fine of Rs 6.3 lakh on the accused.

According to the prosecution, on April 30, 2022, a police team that received a tip-off about the movement of ganja from Andhra to Tamil Nadu intercepted an SUV near Walltax Road and caught the accused in possession of 60 kg of ganja in three bags.

The Elephant Gate police arrested all three persons. The accused were in judicial custody until Friday when they were found guilty.

The counsel for Mohan Kumar and Stanly argued that the police did not produce any independent witnesses, to which the court held that the non-production of independent witnesses is not fatal to the prosecution in a Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act case, observing that the public usually does not come forward to be witnesses in such cases.

The third accused, Peruri Seenu, deposed himself before the court, saying he was a used car salesman and that he was picked up by a police team from Chennai police along a highway near Nellore and brought to the city.

“It is totally contra to the case of the prosecution. But, he (Seenu) has deposed in his cross-examination that the signature in the search notice issued to the accused belongs to him. He was caught red-handed. This court believes that his deposition is an afterthought of the accused to escape from the clutches of law,” the court noted and sentenced all three of them to 12 years of jail time.

Senior police officers of Greater Chennai Police commended the efforts of the Elephant Gate police team in securing the conviction of the accused.