( 1 ) HOW the casual approach of the police at the time of arresting the accused red-handed could in one way prevent the High Court from finally hearing and deciding the acquittal appeal and in other way inadvertently assisting the accused to give slip to police and manage to keep the safe distance from the Court frustrating the attempt of the State to secure presence and possibly conviction and receive sentence - is an aspect glaring and shocking enough which has incidentally surfaced before us to be suitably dealt with.

( 2 ) ). To briefly narrate, few relevant facts and circumstances of the case constraining this Court to preface the above observations are to the effect that respondent Sadhu Parmeshwar Ramaswamy was caught red-handed by the police at bhavnagar railway station on 10-5-1995 with "ganja" weighing two-and-half kilos for which he came to be tried for the alleged offences punishable under Secs. 8 and 20 of the N. D. P. S. Act, 1985, by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bhavnagar, wherein at the end of the trial he came to be acquitted by the impugned judgment and order dated 7th August 1995. Feeling aggrieved by the same the State has preferred the present appeal which came up for admission before this Court (Coram : K. J. Vaidya and M. H. Kadri, JJ.) on 17-3-1996 wherein while admitting the same non-bailable warrant came to be issued against the respondent-accused making it returnable on 9-4-1996. Thereafter time and again this matter has appeared on the board but it has been the say of the police that since the respondent is the resident of some remote village in Andhra Pradesh and further since he has given a false (address) name of the village, despite the best of its efforts he has remained untraceable rendering police quite unable to serve non-bailable warrant issued by this Court upon him. In this regard Mr. D. R. Solanki, Head Constable, Bhavnagar city Police Station, has filed an affidavit wherein it is his case that he had personally visited Chittore on 8-6-1996 and met the Town Police Inspector. He has further stated that he has shown the order passed by this Court and the non-bailable warrant issued pursuant thereto and after detailed inquiry and verification of the map of chittore City and District he was informed that there was no such area named jayojinagar in Chittore District as given by accused. Further, according to Head constable, on his making further enquiry he has learnt that respondent used to live on railway platform of Bhavnagar and had no other permanent or temporary shelter in Bhavnagar. He has further assured this Court that though till this moment the accused has remained untraceable the police shall spare no efforts and will continue its further efforts to track him down to serve upon him the non-bailable warrant issued by this Court and the moment he is arrested, he will be produced before this court.

( 3 ) ). We quite understand and appreciate the difficulty of the investigating agency at this stage in serving the non-bailable warrant and in locating the address of the accused. But we hasten to add that this difficulty is indeed the creation of its own quite callous and indiscreet act of the concerned police officer who arrested the accused on the railway platform. The shrewd and intelligent police officer will never rest contended with the address furnished by the accused person whether he is from state of Gujarat or from outside the State, as he is supposed to be vigilant enough to imagine and suspect that to trust accused in what he says and does is dangerous, because the greater and serious the alleged offence all the more there is a possibility of his giving slip to the police jumping its custody and make impossible his rearrest. This could be easily done only by furnishing false address. Whether the accused is from the outside State or not but where he is found to be involved in an offence where the minimum punishment is of 10 years R. I. and a fine of R