HC breather to ayurvedic medicine start-up entangled in drugs case
CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has quashed a drugs case registered against a Sonepat-based start-up owner whose unit was found with 10 tonnes of bhang (cannabis leaves) by the health department team of Sonepat in April.
The high court bench of justice Arvind Sangwan quashed the FIR even before the investigation was to be completed as it found that the petitioner start-up owner was holding the valid licences. Hence, no presumption of culpable mental state or intention could be drawn against him, the court said adding the material recovered was part of a process towards the manufacturing of an ayurvedic drug for which the petitioner was having a valid licence and, therefore, merely because the recovery was effected from the premises .... no adverse presumption can be drawn,” the court observed.
The owner and petitioner, Anav Jain had approached the high court with a plea that it took him three years to get licences to get a manufacturing licence and sale of ayurveda/ Unani/siddha medicines. He spent a huge amount on setting up of the unit by raising loans from financial institutions and now due to the FIR, it has been shut now, the court was told.
The 25-year-old entrepreneur had got certificate from the department of promotion of industry and internal trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, as a “start-up” for 10 years in 2018. However, the district ayurvedic officer, Sonepat, raided the premises on April 25, he was not given time to show the licences; and this was how the FIR got registered, as per the plea.
The FIR said, the officer had raided the unit on April 25 and recovered 10 tonnes of bhang and 67 kg hemp cannabis (resin). The allegation was that he could not produce the necessary certifications for the recovery made. During inspection, hemp cannabis resin separated from cannabis prepared in the factory was also recovered for which no licence or permission was produced for preparation.
It came to light before the court that he had licence for the possession of 35 tonnes of “hemp” annually and 12 tonnes of “hemp” as one-time possession limit. He had bills from the source in Uttar Pradesh from where bhang was purchased. As of resin, the petitioner said that it was a raw material to be used in the medicines and is not covered under the NDPS Act.
“In view of the above, the registration of the FIR against the petitioner is an act of oppression as immediately before he could start-up his manufacturing ... the present FIR was got registered,” the court said, further recording that as per the NDPS Act, the health department officer was not even competent to be a complainant and he could have called in the police for the same.
The court also did not accept the argument from the state’s counsel that a probe was still underway and observed that the court could invoke its inherent powers to prevent “abuse of process of law” and quashed FIR.