A special judge hearing narcotics cases on Wednesday awarded death penalty to Ghulam Malik, a resident of Jammu & Kashmir, who was caught peddling drugs more than once.The prosecution had sought death penalty for the accused under a provision of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), which states that if an accused is convicted of an offence involving trafficking of narcotics twice, he is punishable with death.A visibly emotional NDPS judge P B Sawant said: “In 29 years of legal service, 10 years of which I’ve spent as a judicial officer, this is the first time I am giving a death sentence.” “I’m sorry. But duty is duty,” judge Sawant told Hyder Ali Mooman, the counsel appearing for Malik. Malik was convicted on December 19 for carrying hashish. The same day, Special Public Prosecutor Arun Gupte moved an application seeking death penalty for the accused under Section 31 A of the NDPS Act—which prescribes that a person convicted for carrying drugs “shall be punishable with death” for any subsequent conviction . Earlier, Malik was convicted by a Gujarat court for conspiring to smuggle hashish in 2004. On a tip-off, the Ahmedabad unit of NCB had seized an abandoned truck loaded with 142 kg of hashish concealed in 42 packets passing Shamlaji Road on January 12, 2002. Documents found in the truck indicated that 55 kg of hashish was to be delivered to Malik.On March 9, 2004, a fast-track court sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on him.After Ahmedabad NCB office intimated their Mumbai office, on January 14, 2002, the Mumbai NCB officers tracked down Malik to his Dongri residence where they found 1.8 kg of hashish. After interrogation, Malik led the NCB officers to one Gurdev Singh Vohra’s godown in Dongri where 28 kg of hashish was seized. Malik also led them to a godown next to Vohra’s where 160 kg of hashish was recovered.Malik was then sent to Gujarat on a transit remand and was tried in the fast track court in Himmatnagar of Sabarkantha district. On March 9, 2004, the fast-track court sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on him. Mooman, meanwhile, argued that the law requires that the accused be convicted the second time only after completing his sentence to attract Section 31 A of the NDPS Act.However, the judge accepted the prosecution’s arguments and said: “After considering elaborate arguments, the accused is liable to be punishable under Section 31 A and not Section 31 of the NDPS Act.”The first instance when capital punishment was invoked in a narcotics case was in 2003 when a special NDPS court had sentenced a Nigerian national, Prince Uzozie, to death. Uzozie and two others were found carrying 3 kilograms of heroin in 1999. Before that, in 1993, Uzozie was convicted for his involvement in a 1989 case where he was caught with 100 grams of heroin. However, on October 26, 2004, a Division Bench of Justice V G Palshikar and Justice Anoop Mohta had acquitted Uzozie. “On the point of death sentence, the Bench stated that the quantity involved was not commercial as the heroin (180 grams) seized was of non-commercial quantity,” said Uzozie’s lawyer Atul Sarpande.However, in Malik’s case, the contraband involved was commercial and one of the biggest seizures made by the NCB. In his statement to the NCB, Malik, a resident of Srinagar, had stated that he had been unemployed since 1994 and has been peddling in hashish since 1999. He used to buy hashish from Kashmir and sell it in Mumbai on a hefty profit.
