In Brief
The Supreme Court considered whether a 2009 government notification could redefine how to measure quantities of narcotic drugs for sentencing purposes under the NDPS Act. The appellants argued that measuring the total weight of a drug mixture (rather than just the pure drug content) was invalid and conflicted with the earlier judgment in E. Micheal Raj. The government contended it had authority to issue the notification and that practical considerations supported measuring the entire mixture. Rather than deciding the issues, the Court referred the matter to a larger bench to resolve fundamental questions about statutory interpretation, the government's powers, and whether the NDPS Act permits aggregate-weight or pure-content analysis for drug sentencing.
The lawyer headnote and full judgment text are available to registered users.