Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Appellant :Mr. Vipin Mahajan, Advocate
For the Respondent: Mr. Harkanwar Jeet Singh, AAG, Punjab.

JUDGMENT :

Jasjit Singh Bedi, J. (Oral)

The prayer in the present petition under Section 439 Cr.P.C. is for the grant of the regular bail to the petitioner in case FIR No.139 dated 27.07.2023 under Sections 21(C), 27-A, 25 and 29 of the NDPS Act, 1985 and Section 25/54 of the Arms Act, 1959 (added later on) registered at Police Station Dinanagar, District Gurdaspur, Punjab.

2. The brief facts of the case are that Vikramjit Singh @ Vicky son of Swaran Singh, Sandip Kaur @ Harman wife of Parminder Singh and Kuldeep Singh @ Kala son of Darshan Singh came to be apprehended with 17 kgs. 960 grams of heroin.

Vikramjit Singh @ Vicky and Kuldeep Singh @ Kala disclosed that one Mandeep Singh Dhaliwal presently residing in USA had asked them to bring heroin from Sri Nagar. At Sri Nagar, three persons had met them who supplied them a bag containing heroin. One of them was Mukhtiar Ahmed (since granted bail vide a common order dated 11.03.2024 passed in CRM-M-9738-2024) and the second was Nafees Ahmad (petitioner) son of Abdul Latiff and the identity of the third person was not disclosed.

Based on the aforementioned statement, Mukhtiar Ahmad and Nafees Ahmad came to be nominated as accused. They were arrested and disclosed the name of Imtiaz Ahmad son of Mohammad Rafi. Imtiaz Ahmad was arrested and disclosed that the said heroin had been given to him by one Raveel Katria son of Manga Katria. Both Raveel Katria and Imtiaz Ahmad were nominated as accused in the present case. They suffered their disclosure statements to the effect that one Faiz Ahmad @ Fyaz Ahmed Hajam (since granted bail vide a common order dated 11.03.2024 passed in in CRM-M-61278-2023) also used to go alongwith them for delivering the consignment. Based on the said statement, Faiz Ahmad @ Fyaz Ahmed Hajam was nominated as an accused.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the petitioner has been falsely implicated in the present case. He contends that the name of the petitioner figured in the disclosure statement of the arrested accused. Pursuant to his arrest, no recovery whatsoever had been effected. Reliance is placed on the judgments in the cases of Tofan Singh Versus State of Tamil Nadu, 2020 AIR (Supreme Court) 5592, Rakesh Kumar Singla Versus Union of India, 2021(1) RCR (Criminal) 704, Surinder Kumar Khanna Versus Intelligence Officer Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, 2018(3) RCR (Criminal) 954, State by (NCB) Bengaluru Versus Pallulabid Ahmad Arimutta & Anr. 2022(1) RCR (Criminal) 762, Sanjeev Chandra Agarwal & Anr. Versus Union of India 2021(4) RCR (Criminal) 590, Vijay Singh Versus The State of Haryana, bearing Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No.(s).1266/2023 decided on 17.05.2023 & Vikrant Singh Versus State of Punjab, CRM-M-39657- 2020", wherein it has been held that the accused can be granted the concession of regular bail where he has been named in the disclosure statement of his co-accused and there is no other corroborative evidence against the accused. As the petitioner was a first-time offender, in custody since 02.08.2023 and none of the 20 prosecution witnesses had been examined so far, he was entitled to the concession of bail.

4. The learned counsel for the respondent-State, on the other hand, contends that in view of the serious allegations levelled against the petitioner, he was not entitled to the grant of bail. He, however, admits that the petitioner was named in the disclosure statement of his co-accused and no recovery was effected from him. He also concedes that the petitioner was a first-time offenders, in custody since 02.08.2023 and none of the 20 prosecution witnesses had been examined so far.

5. I have heard the learned counsel for both the parties at length.

6. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of State of Haryana Versus Samarth Kumar (supra), held as under:-

"4 . The High Court decided to grant pre-arrest bail to the respondents on the only ground that no recovery was effected from the respondents and that they had been imp