SC judge advocates stricter safeguards in drug cases

In a dissenting note, the judge emphasised the need to eliminate, or at least minimise, the possibility of falsely implicating innocent people in cases registered under the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997, by strictly interpreting the provisions of the law and the rules framed thereunder. The 14-page dissenting note was issued in a set of petitions involving the common question of the admissibility of a forensic expert’s report under Section 36 of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act and Rule 6 of the Control of Narcotic Substances (Government Analysts) Rules, 2001. On May 13, a five-judge SC bench comprising Justices Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan, Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar, Salahuddin Panhwar and Ishtiaq Ibrahim ruled by a four-to-one majority that the requirement to mention “full protocols” under the Control of Narcotic Substances Rules was not mandatory. The bench declared that the requirement to mention “full protocols” in reports prepared under the unamended Rule 6 of the Rules, 2001 — which requires government analysts to submit test results together with full protocols of the tests applied — was directory rather than mandatory. The majority judgement held that identification and mention of the names of the internationally recognised tests described in clauses (i) to (vii) of Explanation II to amended Rule 6 amounted to “full and sufficient compliance” with the rule. In his dissenting note, however, Justice Malik Shahzad recalled that the Supreme Court ha