The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the alleged offence, as per the provisions of Section 37 of the NDPS Act.

ORDER

Rajnish Bhatnagar, J. This is a petition filed by the petitioner under Section 439 Cr.P.C. seeking regular bail in complaint case no. VIII/53/DZU/2021 under Sections 8/20(b)(ii)/21(c)/22(c)/25/27A/29 NDPS Act registered at Police Station NCB.

2. In brief the facts of the case are that on 24.09.2021, a secret information was received regarding a parcel addressed to Pankaj Gupta awaiting delivery at a courier office-Shree Tirupati Courier Pvt. Ltd., 253/A-1-A, Shahpur Jat, Hauz Khas, New Delhi. A team of NCB officials went the said courier office and proceeded for delivery of parcel nearby Kali Masjid at Savitri Nagar, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi. After sometime a Taxi bearing No. DL-1-RTC-3329 arrived and the parcel was received by its driver. The driver, identified as Pankaj Gupta, was asked to show the parcel which was in a small khaki-coloured carton box. On opening the said parcel, it was found containing two plastic packets in sealed condition. The first plastic packet contained one packet sanitary napkins which was taken out and one zip-lock polythene was found inside it which contained 15.3 grams of Ecstasy (MDMA) tablets. The second packet also contained sanitary napkins and in zip-lock pouch 29.10 grams of Ecstasy (MDMA) tablets were found. Thereafter, from search of the Taxi car of Pankaj Gupta, from its dashboard a polythene having zip-lock pouches was found containing 16.5 grams, 17 grams, 17.5 grams and 15.5 grams of Ganja. Further, a polythene containing 6 grams of Charas was found and from other two white coloured polythene bags 2 LSD blots and 2 Ecstasy (MDMA) Tablets weighing 0.55 grams were found.

3. During investigation, search of house of Pankaj Gupta was carried out on 24.09.2021 at House No. 25, 3rd Floor, G-Block, Savitri Nagar and 32 blot papers of LSD, 13.25 grams of Charas and Rs.7,68,420/- cash was recovered.

4. Pankaj Gupta disclosed that the recovered contraband from the parcel were ordered by Aakash Mehra (Petitioner herein) who is also his partner in the drugs business and they both shared profits equally. Based on the disclosure, in follow-up investigations, notice under section 67, NDPS Act was given to Aakash Mehra who appeared and tendered his voluntary statement on 27.09.2021. He revealed his complicity in trafficking of drugs in conspiracy with Pankaj Gupta, Sidharth Sahdev and other accused persons. Amongst other things, he revealed that 300-350 parcels have been delivered to the customers by Pankaj Gupta on his direction as the list of these customers was provided by the petitioner herein. As per the complaint, the CDR details of mobile numbers of all accused persons were obtained and found to be in contact. Consequently, the petitioner, namely, Aakash Mehra was arrested on 27.09.2021 and accordingly, Complaint under sections 8, 20(b)(ii)(A), 21(c), 22(c), 25, 27A & 29 of NDPS Act was filed against the accused persons.

5. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner, learned Senior Standing Counsel for NCB and perused the status report filed by the NCB.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner is a young man of 27 years of age with clean antecedents and has been falsely implicated in this case. He further submitted that the petitioner was arrested only on the basis of disclosure statement of the co-accused Pankaj Gupta and no recovery has been effected from the petitioner. He further submitted that there is no material on record to show that the petitioner was acting in connivance with the other co-accused persons and also, there is no embargo under Section 37 of the NDPS Act on the petitioner as he had no connection to the contraband recovered since he was neither the receiver nor consignee of it.

7. He submitted that the purpose of alleged transactions between the petitioner and the co-accused Pankaj Gupta is a matter of trial and the financial transactions being relied upon by the NCB were in fact on account of repayment of a friendly loan by co