Mandatory Section 42 NDPS compliance cannot be replaced by FIR registration and dispatch to a superior officer.

Registration of an FIR and its dispatch to a superior officer do not satisfy the mandatory requirement under Section 42 of the NDPS Act to record prior secret information in writing and communicate it promptly to the immediate superior. The Court distinguished compliance with the Criminal Procedure Code from compliance with Section 42, and reiterated that delayed compliance is possible only with urgency and a satisfactory explanation, not where there is total non-compliance. Because the officer neither reduced the information into writing nor sent it as required, the defect was incurable and the conviction and sentence could not stand.

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Issues: Whether registration of the first information report and its dispatch to the superior officer amounted to compliance with Section 42 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and whether the alleged non-compliance vitiated the conviction and sentence.

Analysis: The requirement under Section 42 to reduce prior secret information into writing and to send it to the immediate superior is separate from the procedure of registration and transmission of a first information report under the Criminal Procedure Code. Compliance with one does not imply compliance with the other. The principles stated in the governing Constitution Bench ruling permit delayed compliance only where there is urgency and satisfactory explanation, but total non-compliance is impermissible. On the facts, the officer did not record the secret information in writing or communicate it as required by Section 42, and the later registration of the first information report and its transmission to the Superintendent of Police could not cure that defect.

Conclusion: Section 42 was not complied with, the conviction and sentence could not stand, and the appeal succeeded.

Ratio Decidendi: Registration of an FIR and its dispatch to a superior officer do not substitute for the mandatory recording and communication of prior secret information under Section 42 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

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