Supreme Court: Atrocious manner of proceedings in sensitive narcotics matter

OVERVIEW

• The Supreme Court held in a sensitive matter relating to narcotics that the manner in which the present proceedings are sought to be prosecuted is atrocious.
• The Special Leave Petitions have been filed after a delay of 652 days.
• Further gaps in slipshod functioning of the Narcotics Control Bureau pointed out by the SC.

FACTS

• In the matter of Union of India vs. Ajijur Rehman, a bench comprising Hon’ble Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hon’ble Justice Hrishikesh Roy pointed out certain inadequacies in the functioning of NCB on 1^st February 2021.
• The bench observed that the opinion of the SPP was given after six months to the Department on 16.05.2019.
• The judges pointed out that the Special Leave Petitions were filed after a delay of 652 days even though the draft SLP was stated to have been received by the NCB headquarters on 22.08.2019 and was forwarded to the concerned Department for corrections on 22.08.2020 after one year. This implies that “the NCB headquarters sat on the file for one year”, said the Hon’ble judges.
• The judges called for an explanation from the NCB headquarters as to how the aforesaid has transpired and what responsibility has been fixed on which officer for such negligence.
• The judges also inquired what steps are being taken by the NCB to streamline the process. 

NCB‘s DELAY IN FILING SLPs: A PATTERN?

• In another judgement of October 2020, the Supreme Court slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on the NCB for delay in filing a petition challenging a bail order, saying several such cases are coming from different government agencies which show "complete inefficiency" in the administration of their legal departments.
• The judges observed that the legal departments of various institutions have been condoning the principles of the Limitation Act and taking the justice system for granted.
• "This is not the only case but many cases are coming before this court from different government agencies after inordinate delays showing complete inefficiency in administration of their legal departments. That the same should happen to the legal department of the NCB reflects an even sadder situation," the SC observed. 

CONCLUSION 

NCB’s lackadaisical approach to proceeding with such sensitive cases is not going amiss by the SC, and the apex court is encouraging the NCB as well as other state legal bodies to take the limitation period solemnly for the sake of speedy justice. 

WILL SC’s REPEATED WARNINGS BE ADEQUATE TO ENSURE PROMPT ACTION ON PART OF THE NCB? Let us know in the comments below.