IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 27.10.2025 Sandeep Singh ...Petitioner Versus State of Punjab ...Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE AARADHNA SAWHNEY Present : Mr. Avneet Singh, Advocate for Mr. N.S. Lucky, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Kamalpreet Bawa, DAG, Punjab.

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AARADHNA SAWHNEY, J.(ORAL)

1. Petitioner, an accused, in case FIR No. 162 dated 03.10.2023, under Section 22, 25 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS), Act 1985, registered against him at Police Station Dhanaula, District Barnala, has filed the present petition for grant of regular bail.

2. Relevant facts as emerging from documents on record be noticed hereinbelow:-

At around 3.30 PM on 3.10.2023, ASI Balwinder Singh, received a secret information that Sandeep Singh @ Kala son of Sukhdev Singh (petitioner) and Harpal Singh @ Mirza son of Shankar Singh, both residents of village Kotduna are habitual of selling intoxicant tablets in the surrounding areas by arranging them from outer States. Informer further disclosed that they were going towards grain market, Dhanaula in a blue coloured motorbike bearing registration No. PB-19K-5728 to sell the said intoxicants. On the basis of the said secret information, present case was registered and the accused-persons were apprehended. From their conscious possession, a transparent polythene bag containing loose 900 intoxicant tablets was recovered. Further, sample of loose intoxicant tablets so recovered was sent to the Regional Testing Forensic Science Laboratory, Bathinda for chemical analysis. As per report dated 6.12.2023 (Annexure R-1), salt of ‘Alprazolam’ was found in the tablets. The average weight of the tablet being 145 mg. per tablet, which would come out 130.5 grams, falls within the ambit of ‘commercial quantity’.

On culmination of investigation, challan was prepared and filed in the Court on 14.02.2024.

Petitioner/accused who was arrested on 03.10.2023, moved an application for grant of bail before the learned Judge Special Court, Barnala. The same was dismissed vide order dated 23.02.2024. Aggrieved of which, present petition has been filed.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that petitioner has been falsely implicated. No recovery of any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance was effected from him. Statutory requirements were not complied with.

Continuing further, learned counsel submits that investigations in the present case are complete, for challan has been filed. Petitioner and other accused have been charged on 21.02.2024. However, out of 13 prosecution witnesses, only four have been examined till date, thus, likelihood of completion of trial in the near future is quite remote, further incarceration of petitioner in custody, would not serve any useful purpose and would also be violative of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article

21 of the Constitution of India. It has thus been prayed to take lenient view in petitioner’s favour, who has been in custody since 03.10.2023, by extending him the concession of bail. The petitioner is not involved in any other case.

4. Opposing the petition, learned State Counsel submits that petitioner and co-accused are friends and were selling intoxicant tablets as they were habitual users of the same. Learned State counsel further submits that at the day of their arrest, they brought the intoxicant tablets from some unknown persons of District Mansa and, thus, have committed a grave and serious offence of selling intoxicant tablets. In view of the quantity of the contraband recovered from the petitioner arrested at the site, as per learned State counsel the rigors of Section 37 of NDPS Act are attracted which bar the grant of bail, unless the twin conditions prescribed in the provision are satisfied. Dismissal of the petition has been prayed for.

5. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the documents on record.

6. Admittedly, the investigations qua the petitioner are comp