252 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Decided on: 07.07.2025 Sarwan Singh ...Petitioner Versus State of Punjab …Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANOOP CHITKARA Present: Mr. Rishu Mahajan, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. J.S. Thind, DAG, Punjab.

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ANOOP CHITKARA, J.

FIR No. Dated Police Station Sections

30 12.02.2024 Gharinda, Amritsar 21/23/25/27A/27/29 of NDPS act and 307 IPC and Sections

25/27/54 of Arms Act

1. The petitioner incarcerated in the FIR captioned above had come up before this Court under Section 483 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, [BNSS], seeking regular bail.

2. Per paragraph 15 of the bail petition as well as custody certificate dated

04.07.2025, accused has no criminal history.

3. The facts and allegations are taken from the reply dated 01.04.2025 filed by the State, which reads as follows:-

“That the brief and relevant facts of the case are that the aforesaid FIR No. 30 dated 12.02.2024 was registered at the Police station Gharinda, Amritsar (Rural), on the basis of a 'Ruqa' sent by SI Arjun Kumar No. 3182/ASR, stating therein that on the petitioner and co-accused Sukhdev Singh were apprehended by him along with the police party during the nakabandi laid on the basis of the secret information and the aforesaid accused tried to run over their Alto Car No. PB02-DX-9106 and four packets containing 500 grams of heroin with a total of 2 kilograms of heroin was recovered from the dashboard of the aforesaid car in the presence of the then Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sub-division Attari, Amritsar (Rural). The detailed facts leading to the recovery of aforesaid 2 kilograms of heroin have been reproduced in true translation of the FIR No. 30 dated 12.02.2024 attached with the petition as Annexure P-1, which may kindly be read as part of this paragraph please as same are not repeated for the sake of brevity.”

4. The Investigator claims to have complied with all the statutory requirements of the NDPS Act, 1985, and BNSS 2023.

5. Petitioner’s counsel prays for bail by imposing any stringent conditions and contends that further pre-trial incarceration would cause an irreversible injustice to the petitioner and their family.

6. The State’s counsel opposes bail and refers to the reply.

7. It would be appropriate to refer to following portion of the reply, which reads as follows:

“Role of the petitioner

6. That as per the prosecution version, the petitioner and co-accused Sukhdev Singh tried to run over Alto Car No. PB02-DX-9106 over the police party with an intention to kill them and and four packets containing 500 grams of heroin with a total of 2 kilograms of heroin was recovered from the dashboard of the aforesaid car.

REASONING

8. Petitioner’s custody is 01 year, 04 months & 17 days, but considering the massive quantity of heroin, petitioner is not entitled to bail. Considering that delay may be a ground for an accused to claim bail, the trial Courts are requested to expedite the cases of smuggling of heroin from Pakistan border and the present is one such case.

9. Quantity involved is 8 times the commercial quantity and the drug is heroin which cannot be compared with other medicinal drugs, cough syrups, poppy straw, Ganja and charas etc.

10. An analysis of the above would lead to the following outcome. The police had recovered commercial quantity of heroin from the vehicle in which petitioner was found present. Petitioner did not point out any reason about his lack of knowledge or the reasons that he was not in possession of such heroin. Since the quantity involved is commercial, as such, rigors of Section 37 come into operation and the burden shifts on the petitioner, which he did not discharge.

11. Section 37¹ of the NDPS Act mandates under sub-section (1) (b) of section 37 that no person accused of an offense punishable for offenses involving commercial quantity shall be released on bail unless- (i) the Public Prosecutor has been given an opportunity to oppose the application of release,