The central legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for reasonable grounds for a prima facie belief of innocence when considering bail conditions under Section 37 NDPS.

JUDGMENT :

ANISH DAYAL, J.

By this petition, the regular bail is sought by the petitioner in Crime No. VIII/DZU/2019 under Section 8, 20, 22(c), 23 & 29 of NDPS Act.

2. As per the case of the prosecutrix, secret information was received on 06th July 2019 regarding one courier parcel booked by one Sudhir Srivastava to Amar Srivastava from Lucknow to USA lying at DTDC company office on the suspicion that it contains tablets in huge quantity and a team was constituted and on opening the parcels 500 strips of 10 Tablets Alprazolam were recovered total weight was found to be 1 k.g. Pursuant to details sought from the manufacturing company in Punjab, it was revealed that the said tablets had been sold to Psychocare Health Pvt. Ltd. and then to M/s. S.S. Medicos situated in U.P.

3. In November, 2019, S.S. Medicos, through Bhanu Pratap, admitted to the purchase of 20,000 tablets but failed to supply details of the stock of medicines as per license held by the company. Pursuant to several notices issued under Section 67 NDPS Act, Bhanu Pratap and his sister Shivangi Singh who was the licence holder for S.S. Medicos did not join investigation. NBW's were issued and finally Bhanu Pratap was interrogated, he disclosed that he had sold 20,000 tablets of Alprazolam to Manish Gupta without any bills. He was arrested on 05th December 2020. Notice was issued to Manish Gupta who was also located in Uttar Pradesh and consequent to his not joining the investigation, NBW's were issued. However, he joined the investigation subsequently.

4. Statement was recorded where he disclosed that he was involved in the illegal sale and purchase of medicines and had procured it from Bhanu Pratap. Out of the 20,000 Alprazolam tablets, 5000 were booked by him as per directions from Bhanu Pratap and the remaining 15,000 were sold by him to one Somdutt Singh whose mobile number was provided. Somdutt was found in Narela, Delhi and he tendered his statement pursuant to a notice served upon him under Section 67 NDPS Act on 07th April 2021,. Apparently, he disclosed that there were huge quantities of medicines lying at his flat at Sector 2, Narela, Delhi. A search was made of the said premises and 11,500 Tramadol Tablets, 750 Tramadol Tablets, 1500 Zolpidem Tablets, 400 Diazapam Tablets, were discovered along with other tablets.

5. Somdutt was arrested on 7th April 2021. Pursuant to another statement of Somdutt recorded on 8th April 2021, he apparently disclosed that these medicines were sent from Balia, U.P., to Anand Vihar through buses and then were illegally couriered abroad on the basis of fake IDs which were provided by Arun and Manish Kumar. He disclosed that he had sent pictures and messages in respect of 16-17 parcels to Arun Kumar and disclosed the address of Arun Kumar.

6. On 12th April 2021, notice was issued to Arun @ Varun (petitioner herein) who apparently disclosed his involvement in the export of psychotropic medicines. He also disclosed the involvement of Rex Ajmeria and Mausam involved in the illegal business of medicines. The petitioner was arrested on 12th April 2021. Somdutt apparently disclosed further through another statement that the drugs recovered from his rented house were brought by the petitioner in his Verna car. Pursuant to tracking details of parcels found in mobile belonging to Somdutt, investigation was carried out and it was found that parcels were exported to foreign countries but were lying at the Foreign Post Office, ITO. Said parcels were traced and a recovery of 8,000 Tramadol tablets and 9,000 Zolpidem tablets was made, which were later seized on 21st September 2021.

7. Pursuant to CDRs that were requisitioned, it became evident that accused petitioner was in touch with accused Somdutt. Further, unaccounted money has been found in the petitioner's bank account and a freezing order was passed which was confirmed by the Competent Authority.

8. An additional status report was filed by the NCB stating that details of money were found in h