238 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 04.02.2026 SUDHIR KUMAR ...PETITIONER VERSUS STATE OF PUNJAB ...RESPONDENT C ORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH BHARDWAJ Present: Mr. Sarvesh Kumar Gupta, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. K.D. Sachdeva, DAG, Punjab.

****

R AJESH BHARDWAJ, J. (ORAL)

1. Petitioner has approached by way of filing the present petition praying for grant of regular bail in case bearing FIR No.94 dated 17.05.2024 under Sections 18 of NDPS Act, 1985 and later on Section 29 of NDPS Act was added, registered at Police Station Khanna City-2, Khanna, District Ludhiana.

2. Succinctly, the facts of the case are that the police party, while on patrolling on 17.05.2024, they saw a car bearing registration No.DL-10CA-8029 golden colour i20 coming from the side of Mandi Gobindgarh. The police stopped the car on suspicion that they might be involved in some offence and asked them to disclose their names. On asking, the driver of the car disclosed his name to be Sudhir Kumar (present petitioner) while the person sitting on the passenger seat disclosed his name to be Saurav and the two persons sitting on the rear seat disclosed their names to be Roshan Lal and Manpreet Singh. They were suspected to be carrying some contraband. Thus, search was conducted on the persons as well as of car. From the dashboard of the car, a packet was recovered, which was found to be containing 3 kgs of opium and Rs. 1,00,000 as drug money. They failed to produce any license regarding the possession of the same and they were arrested at the spot. On registration of FIR, investigation commenced. The samples taken were sent to the FSL. On completion of the investigation, the challan was presented and on framing of charges, trial commenced. Petitioner approached the learned Judge, Special Court, Ludhiana for grant of bail. However, after hearing both the sides and finding no merit in the same, the learned Judge, Special Court, Ludhiana declined the bail application vide order dated 01.08.2024. Aggrieved by the same, petitioner is before this Court praying for the grant of bail by way of filing the present petition.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner, at the outset, prays for the grant of bail to the petitioner on the basis of parity with that of the co-accused, namely, Roshan Lal, Manpreet Singh and Sourabh Sharma @ Saurav. He has drawn the attention of this Court to the order dated 21.01.2026, passed in CRM-M-41935- 2025, CRM-M-23159-2025 and CRM-M-1883-2025, whereby, co-accused Roshan Lal, Manpreet Singh and Sourabh Sharma @ Saurav have been granted regular bail by this Court. He submits that the petitioner is behind bars since 17.05.2024. He submits that on the basis of the parity, the petitioner deserves to be granted bail as the case of the petitioner is similar to that of the said co-

accused, who has already been granted bail.

4. Learned State counsel has endorsed the factum of grant of bail to the co-accused of the petitioner as stated above and has not denied that the petitioner is at par with the co-accused, Roshan Lal, Manpreet Singh and Sourabh Sharma @ Saurav. He further submits that the contraband recovered weighing 3 kgs of opium falls under the category of commercial quantity and thus, the provisions of Section 37 of NDPS Act are attracted. He has produced custody certificate of the petitioner today in the Court and the same is taken on record.

5. After hearing learned counsel for the parties and perusing the record, it is deciphered that the petitioner is behind bars since 17.05.2024. Co-accused, namely, Roshan Lal, Manpreet Singh and Sourabh Sharma @ Saurav are on bail and the case of the petitioner as stated is at par with them. The petitioner and the co-accused were arrested on the spot. Custody certificate produced would show that the petitioner has completed incarceration of about 01 year, 08 months and 14 days as on 03.02.2026 and he is involved in one more case.

6. As held by the Hon'ble Supreme Co