A special NDPS court in Chandigarh gave a lenient sentence to a 34-year-old man convicted of keeping 200 grams of charas, a cannabis resin.[1] The convict, a resident of Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh, had the one month he had already spent in jail counted as his sentence and was fined 7,500 rupees.[1] He will not have to go to jail again.[1]

The court said he should be given a meaningful chance to return to the mainstream of society and live as a law-abiding citizen.[1] Arguing on sentence, the convict said he regretted his mistake and had fallen into bad company.[1] A driver by profession, he is the only earning member of a family that depends on him: his wife, two minor children and elderly parents.[1] He had faced the trial process for about five years.[1]

Special court judge Raman Gokalani said in the judgment that the 200 grams of charas recovered did not fall in the commercial category but in the intermediate quantity category under the NDPS Act, India’s narcotics law.[1] The convict had no earlier criminal record and was not found involved in any other criminal activity after the first information report was registered.[1] Police had arrested him five years earlier near Industrial Area, Chandigarh.[1]