Shillong, July 4: For the first time, the state government has decided to constitute a three-member Advisory Board to deal with cases of repeat drug trafficking offenders.

This has been mandated as per the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (PITNDPS) Act, 1988, which has existed for the past 35 years.

The 3-member Advisory Board will be headed by Justice (Retd) Shivaji Pandey as chairman and two senior advocates of the Meghalaya High Court – ND Chullai and Tshering Yangi – as members.

“With the constitution of the advisory board, we are now in a position to fully implement this PITNDPS Act with immediate effect,” social welfare minister Paul Lyngdoh told reporters on Tuesday.

He said there were several loopholes in the NDPS Act, 1985 and some of these have facilitated violators to circumvent the Act and therefore render it ineffective.

“After a series of meetings organized at my initiative, I am now happy to inform you that after two meetings with the deputy chief minister in-charge home, we have now been able to invoke a more severe Act known as the PITNDPS Act, 1988.This Act is more severe and more effective,” Lyngdoh said while adding that the Act has also identified Meghalaya as one of the vulnerable areas in terms of drug trafficking.

Stating that the PITNDPS Act also takes case of cases of repeat drug trafficking offenders, the minister said the Act empowers the state to detain such persons for a period not less than 3 months without the advisory board and if the detention has to cross 6 months then the matter comes under the advisory board for its consideration.

He said the advisory board is vested with the power of validating such detentions and the detention shall be up to one year under clause 7 of Section 9 and 2 years when read with sub section 2 of Section 2.

“This means the detention would be ranging from minimum 3 months to a maximum of 2 years.

Any person who has been detained under this order and then released under the advice of the advisory board is also liable to be rearrested and detained in case of fresh cases being filed against such persons,” Lyngdoh said.

According to him, the move is to tighten the hold of the state against drug trafficking.

“The advisory board is meant to prevent the state and its machinery from abusing the Act and where there is a difference of opinions among the members forming the advisory board, the opinion of the majority of such members shall be deemed to be the opinion of the board. Also, on the advice of the board, the government may continue the detention of the person concerned for such a period as it thinks fit…,” he further added.

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