IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 25^th May, 2026 Rahul ...Petitioner Versus State of Haryana ...Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE MANISHA BATRA Present: Mr. Satnam Singh Gill, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Neeraj Poswal, Assistant Advocate General, Haryana.

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MANISHA BATRA, J (ORAL):-

The present petition has been filed under Section 482 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for short ‘BNSS’) by the petitioner seeking grant of anticipatory bail in case bearing FIR No. 104 dated 05.04.2026 registered under Section 18of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (for short, ‘NDPS Act’) (Section 29(1) of NDPS Act added later on) at Police Station Ladwa, District Kurukshetra.

2. As per the allegations, on 05.04.2026, on receipt of a secret information, a raiding party was formed which reached at the informed place and apprehended accused Dheeraj Chauhan, from whose conscious possession 253 grams of opium was recovered. The same was taken into possession. He was taken into custody. He suffered a disclosure statement admitting his involvement in the crime. On his disclosure statement, the present petitioner was nominated as co-accused on the allegation that he had supplied the recovered contraband to accused Dheeraj Chauhan. Apprehending his arrest, the petitioner moved an application for grant of anticipatory bail, which has been dismissed by the Court of learned Additional Sessions Judge, Kurukshetra, vide order dated 28.04.2026.

3. It is argued by learned counsel for the petitioner that he has been falsely implicated in this case on the disclosure statement of the co-accused, which cannot be considered to be legally admissible in evidence. He is ready to join investigation. His custodial interrogation is not required. No recovery is to be effected from him. His antecedents are clean. It is, therefore, urged that he deserves to be released on bail.

4. Per contra, learned State counsel, while relying upon the status report, has vehemently argued that the allegations against the petitioner are serious in nature. He was the supplier of the contraband to the co-accused. The chain of other persons involved with him is to be established. To elicit information about the source of the contraband, the custodial interrogation of the petitioner is required. The call detail records of the mobile phones of the petitioner and co-accused Dheeraj Chauhan have been collected during the investigation, which reveals that they were in continuous touch with each other. The recovered contraband had been sold by the petitioner to the co- accused for a sum of Rs. 90,000/-. The said drug money is also to be recovered. It is, therefore, argued that the petitioner does not deserve to be released on bail.

5. This Court has heard the rival submissions made by learned counsel for the parties at considerable length.

6. The petitioner is alleged to have supplied commercial quantity of contraband to the co-accused Dheeraj Chauhan. The respondent-State has placed on record copies of the call detail records of the mobile phones of the petitioner and the co-accused-Dheeraj Chauhan, which show that around the date of occurrence, they were in continuous touch with each other and had exchanged several calls. This fact prima facie establishes the complicity of the petitioner in the commission of the subject offence. For the purpose of conducting a thorough and proper investigation in the matter, custodial interrogation of the petitioner is a must. Even otherwise, the petitioner has failed to make out any exceptional or extraordinary circumstance for grant of pre-arrest bail to him. The powers of anticipatory bail are extra ordinary and the same are to be exercised sparingly and in exceptional circumstances. The Court must be circumspect while exercising such power for grant of anticipatory bail and it should not be granted as a matter of rule and has to be granted only when the Court is convinced that exception