IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH (214)

Date of decision: 07.11.2025 Satish @ Bhagat .... Petitioner V/s State of Haryana ...Respondent CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE JASJIT SINGH BEDI Present: Mr. Parveen Kaushik, Advocate and Ms. Pinki Kaushik, Advocate, for the petitioner.

Mr. T.P. Singh, Sr. DAG, Haryana.

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JASJIT SINGH BEDI, J. (Oral)

The prayer in the present petition under Section 483 BNSS, 2023 is for the grant of regular bail to the petitioner in case FIR No.439 dated 07.12.2021 under Sections 20(B)(ii) C, 23(C), 25, 27(a) and 29 of the NDPS Act, 1985 registered at Police Station Sector 6, Bahadurgarh, District Jhajjar.

2. The brief facts of the case are that the police party received secret information that Jasmer Singh son of Satbir and Shankar Kumar (since granted the concession of bail vide order dated 12.12.2022 passed in CRM-M-22731-2022) son of Ramesh Kumar were travelling in a Silver coloured Innova car bearing No.PB 11 N 5051 and carrying narcotic drug ‘Sulfa’ which they intended to sell at Beri. If a nakabandi was carried out, they could be nabbed with the contraband.

Based on the above allegation, after complying with the provisions of Section 42 of the NDPS Act, a naka was laid. After some time, a car came from Bahadurgarh side going towards Beri Road, PDM Flyover. It was a Silver coloured Innova car bearing No.PB 11 N 5051 and the same was signalled to stop. Two persons were sitting in the car and when asked their names, the person driving the vehicle stated his named to be Shankar Kumar son of Ramesh Kumar and the other person sitting on the conductor seat stated his name to be Jasmer Singh son of Satbir Singh. After complying with the provisions of Section 50 of the NDPS Act, the search was conducted and upon the search of Shankar Kumar, no contraband was recovered, though, his driving licence and RC, etc. were recovered. From the search of Jasmer Singh, his ATM card and phone were recovered. When the search of the car was conducted, from underneath the conductor seat, an army coloured bag was recovered and on opening, a white coloured polythene bag was found. On checking the same, it appeared to be ‘Sulfa’. On weighing, the quantity of the recovered contraband was found to be 6 kgs. 600 grams.

Thereafter, the present FIR came to be registered.

3. Satish alias Bhagat (petitioner) was nominated as an accused by the arrested accused and alleged to be a supplier.

4. 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 of contraband has 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 is a first- time offender, in custody since 15.01.2025 and none of the 22 prosecution witnesses has been examined so far, he is entitled to the concession of bail, moreso, when co-accused/Shankar Kumar has been granted the concession of bail.

5. The learned counsel for the respondent-State, on the other hand, contends that in view of the serious allegations level