Pendakwa Raya v MOHAMAD SUFIAN BIN SAHBUDIN

Case Significance

Shows that within a single multi-charge drug prosecution the prima facie assessment is made charge by charge: joint-possession charges failed for want of a link to the accused, while an individual possession charge under section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 survived to require a defence.

This High Court decision at Temerloh concerns one of a group of drug charges arising from a single raid, and is the charge on which the prosecution succeeded at the close of its case. Two accused had been charged across several case numbers following a raid in front of a house at Kampung Bongsu, Lanchang, Temerloh, Pahang, in June 2022. The charges ranged from trafficking in methamphetamine under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 to possession offences under section 12(2) and section 6 of that Act and a scheduled-poison offence under section 30(5) of the Poisons Act 1952. This record relates to an amended charge against the first accused alone for possession of 1.01 grams of methamphetamine under section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, punishable under section 12(3). At the close of the prosecution case, the court applied the settled approach in Mat v PP, that the defence should not be called merely to hear the accused's explanation, and that the court must instead scrutinise the prosecution's evidence to decide whether a prima facie case has been made out. On the joint charges, the court found the possession evidence wanting, because the drugs were connected to a motorcycle accessible to anyone, with no evidence of what happened to it before the raid or of the accused's activity in relation to it, and the second accused was merely a pillion rider holding a jungle fowl. The court underscored that it should not call any accused to enter a defence merely so as to hear his explanation, a course to be avoided in criminal trials; instead it had to weigh the prosecution's own evidence at the close of its case and decide whether that evidence, taken at its highest, disclosed a prima facie case. On this individual possession charge against the first accused, however, the court held that the prosecution had succeeded in establishing a prima facie case for the section 12(2) offence read with section 12(3), and it accordingly called the first accused to enter his defence on that charge.