HC relief to man sentenced to 30-yrs by Mauritius court

In a huge relief to a man awarded 30 years in jail by a Mauritius court for possession of drugs, the Bombay High Court ordered his release after observing that he can only be sentenced to ten years as he possessed small quantity of the contraband.
A division bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Gautam Patel was hearing a petition filed by Prem Kishor Raj who was arrested in May 1996 by Mauritius police for possessing drugs.
Raj was found guilty for possession of 371.3 grams of heroin and sentenced to 30 years in jail which was later reduced to 23 years.

As per the agreement between India and Mauritius, Raj was repatriated to India in 2008. However, his repatriation documents showed that he was convicted on January 1, 1999.
He filed a petition in the Bombay High Court seeking that he should be given relief as per the Indian law and released early. The agreement between the two nations permits the convict to take benefit of the law prevailing in the parent country.
Earlier, the court had directed the petitioner to file a representation before the Ministry of Home Affairs for adaptation of his sentence under the Repatriation of Prisoners Act. On June 29 this year the MHA commuted his sentence to 20 years. Aggrieved by this, Raj challenged the MHA decision.

The High Court after hearing both the sides observed that Raj was found to be in possession of 371.1 grams of heroin which had only six per cent purity thereby translating to an effective quantity of 22.4 grams of heroin.
"The Ministry of Home Affairs has simply considered the gross weight of the seized contraband and treated it as a commercial quantity thereby justifying the 20 year sentence. This is clearly incorrect. At 22.4 grams, the offence is covered by Section 21(b) of the NDPS Act which is for small quantity. So the maximum sentence that could have been handed down to Raj was ten years and no more," the High Court observed on October 14.

Observing that Raj has already served more jail time than could have been awarded to him under the NDPS Act, the High Court quashed and set aside the MHA decision and directed for Raj to be released forthwith.