Kerala High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of P. Ubaid, J. declared that re-testing cannot be allowed if the first testing clearly defined as to the composition of the item.
The petitioner was detected of having the possession of opium after analyzing the packets he had in possession. Additionally, the sealed packets were again produced in Court for reanalyzing the percentage of ‘morphine’ contained in the ‘opium’.
The petitioner here cited a decision of the Supreme Court in Thana Singh v. Central Bureau of Narcotics, (2013) 2 SCC 603, where the Supreme Court held that retesting in cases like this cannot be allowed. He also stated that a total of twelve samples were collected and produced in Court. Had the six of the samples been retained then the second analysis could have been justified. But in this case, the request for collection of six new samples from the sealed properties was clearly defined as re-testing.
The Court here questioned the respondents as to why they need to re-test when the sample initially stood identified as opium and stated the request to be wrongly entertained by the lower court. Accordingly, the revision petition was allowed.[P. Abdulkhader v. State of Kerala,2018 SCC OnLine Ker 4657, Order dated 16-01-2018]
