The main legal point established is the importance of judicial discipline, adherence to precedents, and the proper procedure for addressing conflicting judgments to ensure certainty and stability in the legal system.

JUDGMENT

Sudhir Mittal, J. - Whether in a case under the NDPS Act 1985, a challan presented under Section 173 (2) of the Code of criminal Procedure, is an in-complete challan if presented without the report of the chemical Examiner/Forensic Science Laboratory is the question to be decided in the present case..

2. This issue had vexed this Court as well as the Courts subordinate to it till the year 2018 when a Division Bench of this Court in Ajit Singh alias Jeeta versus State of Punjab, Crl. Rev. No.4659 of 2015, held that a challan presented without the report of the Chemical Examiner/Forensic Science Laboratory was an incomplete challan and in such a case an accused was entitled to grant of default bail under Section 167 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This judgement decided a batch of 7 cases and is dated 30th November 2018. It was passed on a reference made as under:-

"1. Whether the presentation of report under Section 173(2) Cr.P.C. by the police without the report of chemical examiner/FSL amounts to incomplete challan and in the absence of any extension of time under Section 36A (4) of the NDPS Act, the accused is entitled to bail under Section 167(2) Cr.P.C.?

2. If the reply is in the affirmative, then what is the position regarding commonly used substances like opium and poppy husk etc., which can be easily identified by the police officer from visual inspection, smell or taste?"

3. While deciding the said case, the Division Bench noticed that there were conflicting views of Single Benches of this Court starting from the year 2009 till the year 2016, when on 28th January 2016, the aforementioned reference was made. The matter would seem to have been settled as is apparent from a number of later Single Bench judgements of this Court, some of which are Bhupinder Kumar @ Binder versus State of Haryana,2019 2 RCR(Criminal) 376, Tarlok and others versus State of Haryana,2019 3 RCR(Criminal) 348 and judgement dated 22 nd May 2020 passed in Criminal Revision No. 1626 of 2019 Janta Singh versus State of Haryana. These Single Bench judgements indicate that the Division Bench judgement in Ajit Singh @ Jeeta (supra) was being followed uniformly. However, in judgement dated 16th October 2019 passed in Criminal Revision No. 1731 of 2019 Akash Kumar @ Sunny versus State of Haryana by a learned Single Bench of this Court, the Division Bench judgement in Ajit Singh @ Jeeta (supra) was declared per incuriam. This judgement has been followed by another Single Bench decision dated 20th December 2019 passed in CRM No. M-44412 of 2019 Shankar versus State of Haryana.

4. Evidently, the law which had been settled has been unsettled once again on account of the judgements in Akash Kumar alias Sunny (supra) and Shankar ( supra). This would be one of the rare instances where the High Court instead of settling the law has thrown it back into a state of flux as it existed prior to the judgement in Ajit Singh alias Jeeta (supra). Depending upon their own perceptions, the trial Courts are following the judgement of their choice as is evident from the facts of this case. In this case recovery of 25 Kgs. 50 Gms. of poppy husk was made on 28th June, 2020 leading to registration of the FIR and arrest of the petitioner. The police presented a challan on 25th August 2020 but unaccompanied by a report of the Forensic Science Laboratory. A period of 60 days expired on 28th August 2020 and the petitioner moved a petition under Section 167 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure on 31st August 2020, claiming grant of default bail on the ground that the challan presented on 25th August 2020 was an incomplete challan. The petition was dismissed vide order dated 01st September 2020 by placing reliance upon Akash alias Sunny (supra) and Shankar (supra) and after noticing that the Single Benches had held the Division Bench judgement in Ajit Singh alias Jeeta (supra) to be per incuriam.

5. The doctrine of stare decisis has been the bedrock of our judicial sys