Regular bail may be granted to an accused under the NDPS Act when the charges are based solely on a co-accused's disclosure statement, no contraband is recovered, and there is a lack of substantive corroborative evidence, fulfilling the prima facie requirement under Section 37 of the NDPS Act.

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JASJIT SINGH BEDI, J. (Oral)

The prayer in the present petition under Section 483 of BNSS, 2023 is for the grant of regular bail to the petitioner in a case FIR No.198 dated 22.06.2025 under Sections 22-C , 29 (added later on) of the NDPS Act, 1985 registered at Police Station Bahalgarh, District Sonipat (Haryana).

2. The brief facts of the case are that on secret information, one Prince was apprehended and recovery of certain medicines like RX Triprolidine MFG LIC No.MNB/06/421 Batch No.TBHY0081 MFG date 05/2025 Expiry dated 04/27 marketed by CADIZ LIFE SCIENCE 39/2/6 Basement Floor Etc. and as such, 250 bottles 100 ml. each (total 25kgs.) of prohibited medicines came to be effected from him. During the course of investigation, he disclosed the name of Ashish (petitioner) who came to be nominated as an accused under Section 29 of the NDPS Act.

3. 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 17.09.2025 but none of the 20 prosecution witnesses has been examined so far, the Trial of the present case is not likely to be concluded anytime soon and therefore, he is entitled to the concession of bail.

4. The learned counsel for the respondent-State, on the other hand, while referring to the status report dated 12.03.2026 which is already on record contends that in view of the serious allegations levelled against the petitioner, he is not entitled to the grant of bail. He, however, admits that the petitioner is named in the disclosure statement of his co-accused and no recovery of contraband has been effected from him. He also concedes that the petitioner is a first-time offender, in custody since 17.09.2025 but none of the 20 prosecution witnesses has been examined so far.

5. I have heard the learned counsel for both the parties at length.

6. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of State of Haryana Versus Samarth Kumar (supra), held as under:-

“4. The High Court decided to grant pre-arrest bail to the respondents on the only ground that no recovery was effected from the respondents and that they had been implicated only on the basis of the disclosure statement of the main accused Dinesh Kumar. Therefore, reliance was placed by the High Court in the majority judgment of this Court in Tofan Singh v. State of Tamil Nadu reported in (2021) 4 SCC 1.

5. But, it is contended by the learned Additional Advocate General appearin