Error In Tough Anti-Drug Law Fixed After 7 Years, Centre Says "Oversight"

An error in the tough anti-drugs law - the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act- described as an "oversight" by the government has been fixed after seven years with an ordinance that was signed off by President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday.

In 2014, a key sub-section was not included after an amendment to the law in one of the most stringent provisions - Section 27 A, which "details the punishment for financing illicit trafficking of drugs as 10 years". The provision has been used in several high-profile cases including the arrest of actor Rhea Chakraborty last year in the drugs case linked to death of actor Sushant Rajput.

The error was found and fixed after the recent seizure of three tonnes of heroin worth Rs 15,000 crore in Gujarat's Mundra Port where the provision has been invoked for illegal drug trafficking.

Stressing that the change cannot be applied retrospectively, Rhea Chakraborty's lawyer Satish Manshinde told NDTV: "The Ordinance is to correct the blunder that was committed while it was promulgated earlier. Though this has been done to correct the law and the mistake that had crept in, this is not retrospectively applicable to cases pending before September 30 as it carves out a new punishment for those who may be encompassed by the amendment. Only procedural laws are prospective whereas punitive laws can not under any circumstances be retrospective..."

The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was enacted in 1985 "to make stringent provisions for the control and regulation of operations relating to narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances". 

A year later, the Narcotics Control Bureau was set up under the Home Ministry as an anti-narcotics drug law enforcement agency. The 1985 law has been amended at least thrice - in 1989, 2001 and 2014.

In 2014, however, a new term - "essential narcotics drug" as sub section (viiia) - was introduced to the Section 2 of the law. An essential narcotics drug was defined as "narcotic drug notified by the central government for medical and scientific use" at the time.

With this amendment, the earlier sub section (viiia) - "illicit trafficking" of drugs with clauses (i to v) - was renumbered (as sub-section viiib).

As the law describes, illegal trafficking of drugs is an important section in the NDPS Act as it deals with the "production, manufacture, possession, sale, purchase, transportation, warehousing, concealment, use or consumption, import inter-state, export inter-State, import into India, export from India or transhipment, of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances" apart from financing of these activities.

The most stringent provision of the NDPS Act is Section 27 A which details "punishment for financing illicit traffic and harbouring offenders."

Section 27 A of the NDPS Act reads as follows: "Whoever indulges in financing, directly or indirectly, any, of the activities specified in sub-clauses (i) to (v) of clause (viiia) of section 2 or harbours any person engaged in any of the aforementioned activities, shall be punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than ten years but which may extend to twenty years and shall also be liable to fine which shall not be less than one lakh rupees but which may extend to two lakh rupees."

With the re-numbering of illicit trafficking of drugs from sub-section (viiia) to (viiib) in the 2014 amendment, the same was not incorporated in Section 27 A of the NDPS Act.

While Section 27-A details the punishment for financing illicit trafficking of drugs as 10 years, it derived the definition of the "illicit trafficking" offence from the wrong provision of the NDPS Act.