The court emphasized the necessity of adhering to procedural requirements in seizure and recovery to maintain the integrity of evidence, leading to the granting of bail due to significant doubts about the prosecution's case.

Order :

(FARJAND ALI, J.)

1. The jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked by way of filing an application under Section 439 Cr.P.C. at the instance of accused-petitioner. The requisite details of the matter are tabulated herein below:

2. It is contended on behalf of the accused-petitioner that no case for the alleged offences is made out against him and his incarceration is not warranted. There are no factors at play in the case at hand that may work against grant of bail to the accused-petitioner and he has been made an accused based on conjectures and surmises.

3. Contrary to the submissions of learned counsel for the petitioner, learned Public Prosecutor opposes the bail application and submits that the present case is not fit for enlargement of accused on bail.

4. I have considered the submissions made by both the parties and have perused the material available on record.

5. Though the matter pertains to recovery of commercial quantity of contraband but here in this case a bizarre practice has been adopted by the prosecution. The alleged recovery was made somewhere near BSL Factory, Hamirgarh, District but conveniently the officers took the article and the accused to their office at Chittorgarh where all the formalities were done and the charge-sheet came to be submitted in the Court of Special Judge, NDPS Court, Chittorgarh. Section 177 Cr.P.C. envisages about the ordinary place of inquiry and trial and as per which a case can be inquired or be tried at a place within the territorial jurisdiction of which offence was committed. It is the case of the prosecution that an offence of having possession of contraband was committed near the Village Hamirgarh and that place falls within the territorial jurisdiction of Bhilwara judgeship however the memos were prepared at different place and a charge-sheet has also been submitted where the office of the respondent is situated not at the place where crime was committed. This Court cannot permit the respondents to make out a new place for trial d-horse to the provision of Code of Criminal Procedure. When law directs certain things to be done in a certain manner then the things must have been done in that manner alone and any deviation or any other course of performance is forbidden by law. Dealing with the situation mentioned above, this Court has made discussion in the case of Major Singh Vs. State of Rajasthan in SBCRLMB No.5457/2024. The relevant portion of the said judgment is reproduced here in under:-

6. What is reflecting from the record that a vehicle was intercepted by the police on 08.06.2022 near Kumpli circle in which certain quantity of contraband was recovered and, therefore, the petitioner and the other person were apprehended at the spot and after usual investigation, charge sheet came to be submitted against them for the above mentioned offences and the trial commenced.

7. A perusal of the statements of independent witnesses reflects that P.W. 1 Ajay Kumar, who happens to be a witness and was projected by the prosecution to verify the recovery from the vehicle but he did not support the story set out by the prosecution and turned hostile.

8. P.W.2 Balvindra Singh is also an independent witness, who was working in his agricultural field situated near crime spot and present at the time of incident. In his on oath statement, he denied from the fact of recovery of contraband.

9. P.W. 3 Deepak was also projected as an independent witness who was present at the crime place; but he turned hostile and didn’t support the story of prosecution.

10. Similar is the statement of P.W. 4 Balveer Singh @ Billa and P.W. 5 Baldev Singh as both have totally denied regarding the fact of recovery of the contraband from the vehicle and did not support the story of the prosecution. P.W. 6 & P.W. 7 Sukhp