The Supreme Court of India is presently hearing a case filed by a member of the 3.5 Collective against the acquittal of Lukhosai Zou, former Chairperson of the Moreh Autonomous District Council and others by the Special NDPS Court as also a judgement of the Manipur High Court denying the Collective and particularly the members who had personally suffered due to the prevalence of drug trafficking in the region, i.e., recovering addicts and family members of the recovered addicts; to file an appeal against the judgment of the NDPS Court.
The matter came up before Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and PB Varale in the Special Leave Petition, (Criminal) number 3010-3011of 2022 filed by member of The 3.5 Collective challenging the acquittal. Specifically, the Supreme Court of India is looking into the issue of whether the drug users who have suffered loss due to drug menace would be considered victims of the crime of drug trafficking. If they are considered a victim of the crime they will have the right to appeal against the acquittal of drug traffickers even if the government fails to do so. This issue was discussed in the Supreme Court of India yesterday.
Opposing the appeal by the Collective, counsel of Manipur Government pointed out that the appeal against the acquittal order has already been filed in the Manipur High Court and hearing will start from March 2024 so the special leave petition by the Collective to restore their right to appeal was extraneous. Counsel for the 3.5 Collective insisted during arguments however that they should be allowed to file their appeal in the High Court as a matter of right in view of them being victims under the law, of drug trafficking and being personally aggrieved by the same.
The Government of Manipur objected to granting such permission to the petitioners and sought permission from the court to submit their response to these arguments. Government also demanded that other respondents be served notice. The court has granted four weeks’ time to the Government of Manipur to file their response to the prayer of the petitioners to be treated as victims of the offence and to file their appeal against the acquittal of Mr. Lukhosai Zou, former Chairperson of the Moreh Autonomous District Council and others before the Hon’ble High Court of Manipur.
The matter will now come after six weeks. Human Rights Defender (HRD) Babloo Loitongbam is Convenor of the 3.5 Collective and petitioner in this case.
Background
Way back in 2022, the government submitted had a similar in response to a petition by a civil society collective in Manipur, including an organisation of former drug users that works for the rehabilitation of drug addicts, challenging the acquittal and alleging that the prosecution refused to file an appeal. After the matter came up in the Supreme Court urging overturning of the High Court’s decision, the Manipur government had then told the Supreme Court that it had subsequently filed an appeal in the High Court against the December 2020 acquittal of Lhukhosei Zou and others by a Manipur court in a drug case.
The government submitted this in response to a petition by a civil society collective in Manipur, including an organisation of former drug users that works for the rehabilitation of drug addicts, challenging the acquittal and alleging that the prosecution refused to file an appeal. At the time, the Supreme Court had issued a notice to the Manipur government on March 25, asking the state why it had not filed an appeal in the matter and directed a copy of the appeal to be filed before the Supreme Court.
The case had gained prominence in 2020 when Additional Superintendent of Police and decorated officer with the Narcotics and Affairs of Border Bureau, Th Brinda, had accused then Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh as well as the BJP state vice-president of “putting pressure on the department to withdraw the case”. It was Brinda who had led the raid on Zou in 2018, and claimed to have recovered 4,595 kgs of heroin and 2,80,200 World is Yours (WY) Amphetamine tablets weighing 28 kgs, from different properties. The accusations came in the form of a sworn affidavit that Brinda filed in the high court. In her affidavit, Brinda claimed that among the arrested persons, Lhukhosei Zou was considered to be the kingpin of the drug cartel. At the time of his arrest, Zou was the Chairman of the 5th Autonomous District Council (ADC) of Chandel district. He was elected to the ADC in June 2015 on a Congress ticket and became its chairman in September 2015. He defected to BJP in April 2017.
It had taken the state two years to file an appeal, two years after the acquittal. The 3.5 Collective had approached the high court in 2021. Belatedly, the Manipur government informed the Court of an internal order seeking to challenge the acquittal.
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