205 THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CRM-M No.37629 of 2025 Date of Decision: 23.01.2026 Jagdish Singh @ Kaka ..... Petitioner Versus State of Punjab ..... Respondent CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH BHARDWAJ ***

Present: Mr. Abhinav Gupta, Advocate and Mr. Jatinder Kumar Kansal, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Raj Karan Singh, Asstt. A.G., Punjab.

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RAJESH BHARDWAJ, J.

1. Present petition has been filed praying for the grant of regular bail to the petitioner in case bearing FIR No.222, dated 20.10.2023, under Sections 18-b, 25, 27, 31, 31-a & 29 of NDPS Act, registered at Police Station Sardulgarh, District Mansa.

2. Succinctly the facts of the case are that the police party was on patrolling on 20.10.2023 and laid the naaka at main road Ratia, Sardulgarh for checking the suspicious vehicles. In the meantime, a Creta car bearing registration No.PB-61-D-5996 was seen coming from the side of village Khaira Kalan. The same was signalled to stop. On seeing the police, driver of the car got perplexed and tried to reverse the same, thereafter, he opened the door of the car and tried to ran away from there.

On suspicion, he was apprehended by the police party. On asking, he disclosed his name to be Vikram Singh Meena. He was suspected to be carrying some contraband in the car and thus, search of the car was conducted. On conducting the search, a transparent plastic box was recovered from the car, in which one black colour plastic bag was found. On opening the black coloured plastic bag, 12 Kgs Opium was recovered. He failed to produce any licence regarding the conscious possession of the same, thus, the FIR was registered and he was arrested on the spot. The samples taken were sent to the FSL. On completion of the investigation, the challan was presented. During the investigation, complicity of the petitioner surfaced as he was the purchaser of the contraband, thus, he was arrayed as an accused in the present case. Resultantly, the petitioner was arrested on 11.11.2024. The petitioner approached the Court of learned Judge, Special Court, Mansa, praying for the grant of bail. However after hearing both the sides and finding no merit in the same, the learned Judge, Special Court, Mansa, declined the bail application filed by the petitioner vide order dated 20.05.2025. Hence being aggrieved, the petitioner is before this Court by way of filing the present petition praying for the grant of regular bail.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner has vehemently contended that the petitioner has been falsely and frivolously implicated in the present case. He has submitted that neither the petitioner was named in the FIR nor any recovery has been effected from him. However he has been implicated in the present case only on the basis of disclosure statement of co-accused, namely, Vikram Singh Meena as he was the purchaser of the contraband. He has submitted that the petitioner was already in custody since 11.11.2020 in other case bearing FIR No.173, dated 11.10.2020, under Sections 302, 506, 148, 149, 120-B of IPC and Sections 25, 27 of Arms Act, registered at Police Station Bhikhiwind, District Tarn Taran and he was arrested in the present case through production warrants dated 13.06.2024. He has further submitted that the investigation qua the petitioner stands completed and challan was presented before the learned trial Court on 24.02.2025. He has further submitted that no other case has been registered against the petitioner except the aforementioned case bearing FIR No.173, dated 11.10.2020. He has submitted that the petitioner is behind bars since the date of his arrest, however there is no material progress in the trial. To buttress his arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner has relied upon the judgments passed by Hon’ble the Supreme Court in Criminal Appeal No.668 of 2020, ‘Amit Singh @ Moni vs. Himachal Pradesh’, Criminal Appeal No.827 of 2021, ‘Mukarram Hussain vs State of Rajasthan and another’ and by this Cour