The court considered the petitioner's long custody, delay in trial, and non-examination of prosecution witnesses as grounds for granting regular bail.

JUDGMENT :

Arvind Singh Sangwan, J.

1. Prayer in this 3rd petition is for grant of regular bail in FIR No.35 dated 01.05.2019 under Section 21/25/29 of NDPS Act, registered at Police Station STF, District STF Wing, SAS Nagar, Mohali; earlier two petitions were dismissed as withdrawn on 10.02.2020 and 15.09.2021.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner relies upon the order dated 29.11.2021 passed in CRM-M-48027-2021, vide which co-accused Raja Singh was granted the concession of regular bail. The operative part of the order reads as under: -

“…Brief facts of the case as per the FIR are that ASI Harjinder Singh, along with other police officials, was on patrol duty for search of suspicious person and when he was coming from village Attari to Amritsar, a secret informer informed that petitioner-Raja Singh, along with Lovedeep Singh @ Deepu, Jajj Singh @ Doctor, Rajwinder Singh @ Raju and Gurdeep Singh have conspired with each other and are in the business of selling heroin and they are having connection with Pakisatani suppliers and supply heroin in Amritsar City. It was also informed that they are coming in a Verma car bearing registration No.PB-11-BA-0090 and one Swift car. All the persons are seen in Adda Attari and if barricading is done, they can be caught with heroin. ASI Harjinder Singh shared this information with SI Prabhjit Singh, who was also on patrol duty. The said information was recorded in writing by SI Prabhjit Singh and, thereafter, a ruqa was sent for registration of the case through Whatsapp and e-mail and the copy of the same was sent to HC Manpreet Singh to the Police Station at 08.20 p.m. on 1.5.2019 and, later on, FIR was registered at 21:46 hours. As per the further investigation, during the time when the barrier was laid, the aforesaid car was seen, in which two persons were coming. The car was intercepted and the person, who was driving the car, disclosed his name Raja Singh and co-accused Lovedeep Singh @ Deepu was sitting on the co-driver seat. Thereafter, notice under Section 50 of the NDPS Act (for short ‘the Act’) was given by SI Prabjit Singh and DSP Pawanjit Singh was called at the spot. Thereafter, personal search of the petitioner and co- accused Lovedeep Singh @ Deepu was conducted and Rs.9,000/- was recovered from back pocket of his pant and Rs.3,000/- was recovered from Lovedeep Singh @ Deepu. From underneath the driver seat, a yellow cloth (parna) was recovered in which polythene packet was concealed and on weighment, it came to 01 kg. 10 gms. of heroin and the same was sealed with seals ‘PS’ and ‘PJ’. Thereafter, DSP left the spot and the drug money was also recovered from the dash board of the car. Thereafter, by preparing the different memos, the car and the contraband were recovered and statement of public witness Sama Singh was recorded.

Counsel for the petitioner submits that on the next date, the case property along with the accused was presented before the Magistrate, where two samples of 10 gms each were drawn and seal ‘MKS’ of the learned Judge and ‘PS’ of SI Prabhjit Singh was affixed on Form M29 and on 7.5.2019, the samples were sent to the FSL, Amritsar and on receiving the report from FSL, the challan was presented.

Counsel for the petitioner has argued that when the alleged information was shared by ASI Harjinder Singh with SI Prabhjit Singh, the statement of ASI Kashmir Singh, who was part of the police party, was recorded.

During the investigation ASI Harjinder Singh, when sent the information in term of Section 42 (2) of the NDPS Act to SI Prabhjit Singh, he made the following memo of information regarding commission of offence:-

“I, ASI Harjinder Singh No.1287/Tarn Taran, STF posted at Border Range, Amritsar. Today on dated 1.5.2019 at time around 7.30 p.., I have received an information from secret informer that accused Raja Singh s/o Resham Singh r/o Village Rangarh, PS Gharinda, District Amritsar and Lovedeep Singh @ Deepu s/o Baldev Singh r/o Atari Ghati, presently residing at