The Madras High Court Bench here has set aside the conviction and four years of rigorous imprisonment imposed by a trial court on a woman ganja peddler after observing that she had admitted her guilt on the basis of wrong advice given by her counsel.
Allowing a criminal appeal filed by the accused Suchithra (name changed) of Thideer Nagar here, Justice M. Sathyanarayanan said the trial court too had committed an error in the case by failing to put the woman on notice before imposing the severe punishment.
The judge pointed out that the Madurai city police arrested the woman on January 23, 2007 for having allegedly hidden 1.5 kg of ganja under a flyover and prosecuted her under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
Since the woman admitted to having committed the offence, when she was subjected to questioning after framing of charges, a Special Court for trying NDPS Act cases here recorded her admission and sentenced her to four years of imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of Rs.2,000.
Immediately, the woman moved the present appeal but it remained pending in the High Court for the last seven years since her counsel on record did not show interest in conducting the case and remained absent on the date when it was posted for final hearing.
Hence, the judge appointed a woman lawyer U. Maheshwari as an amicus curiae and agreed with her submissions that the appellant, being an uneducated woman, had been misled by her counsel before the trial court to admit the guilt in such a serious case.
Stating that offences under the NDPS Act were serious in nature and they attract severe punishment, the judge said that the appellant’s conviction could not be sustained since “unfortunately the trial court as well as the counsel had failed to discharge their duties properly.”
Madurai police arrested the woman in 2007 for allegedly hiding 1.5 kg of ganja under a flyover