ORDER :

FARJAND ALI, J.

1. The jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked by way of filing an application under Section 483 of the BNS 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 the petitioner and he has been made an accused based on conjectures and surmises and on the basis of the statement made by the co- order accused in custody. There are no factors at play in the case at hand that may work against grant of bail to him and his further incarceration is not warranted. On these grounds, prays that the petitioner may be granted indulgence of bail.

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. Having given thoughtful consideration to the rival submissions and upon a prima facie evaluation of the material placed on record, this Court finds that the petitioner has remained behind the bars for a continuous period of about two years. The prosecution case, insofar as it concerns the petitioner, appears to be founded more on suspicion than on any cogent or substantive material. It is an admitted position that no contraband was recovered from the possession or at the instance of the petitioner and that the alleged recovery has been effected only from the co-accused Malaram. The implication of the petitioner emanates solely from the disclosure statement of the said co-accused Malaram recorded while in police custody, without there being any independent material or circumstantial evidence to corroborate the same. The charge-sheet having already been filed and no further recovery being stated to be pending from the petitioner, his continued custodial detention does not appear to be warranted for the purposes of investigation. A bare perusal of the FIR and the material collected during investigation does not prima facie disclose any specific role, overt act or direct participation attributable to the petitioner in the alleged offence. In such circumstances, the prolonged incarceration of the petitioner for nearly two years, particularly when the trial is likely to take considerable time to conclude, would not serve any useful purpose, especially in the absence of material to suggest that he would evade the process of law or influence the prosecution witnesses. It is in this factual and legal backdrop that the evidentiary worth of the disclosure statement relied upon by the prosecution requires closer judicial scrutiny.

5. It is a well-settled proposition that a confessional or disclosure statement made in police custody has limited evidentiary value under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, and only that portion of the statement which leads to the discovery of a fact can be admissible. In the instant case, there is no material to suggest that any incriminating recovery or discovery was effected pursuant to the second disclosure allegedly implicating the petitioner. The prosecution has also failed to establish any independent corroborative evidence linking the petitioner to the alleged transaction or recovery.

6. In this backdrop, the subsequent disclosure, being inconsistent and uncorroborated, appears highly doubtful and cannot, by itself, constitute a sufficient legal foundation for continued detention or prosecution of the petitioner. The variance between the two disclosures, particularly when recorded in quick succession, prima facie reflects an attempt at embellishment or af