Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2022 Supreme(SC) 619

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
N.V. Ramana, CJI., Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli, JJ.
Narcotics Control Bureau – Appellant
Versus
Mohit Aggarwal – Respondent
Criminal Appeal Nos. 1001-1002 of 2022 Arising out of Petitions for Special Leave To Appeal (Crl.) No. 6128-29 of 2021
Decided on : 19-07-2022

Advocates appeared:
For the Appellant :A.K. Sharma, B. V. Balaram Das, Advocates
For the Respondent:Mr. P. K. Jain, Advocate

IMPORTANT POINT
Parameters of bail available under Section 37 of NDPS Act are narrow--Length of period of custody or fact that charge-sheet has been filed and trial has commenced are by themselves not considerations that can be treated as persuasive grounds for granting relief to accused under Section 37 of NDPS Act.

Headnote:
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 – Section 37 – Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 – Section 439 – Grant of bail – Seizure of huge quantity of contraband tablets – At the stage of examining application for bail in context of Section 37 of Act, Court is not required to record a finding that accused person is not guilty – Court is also not expected to weigh evidence for arriving at a finding as to whether accused has committed offence under NDPS Act or not – Entire exercise that Court is expected to undertake at this stage is for limited purpose of releasing him on bail – Focus is on availability of reasonable grounds for believing that accused is not guilty of offences that he has been charged with and he is unlikely to commit an offence under the Act while on bail – Even de hors confessional statement of respondent and other co-accused recorded under Section 67 of NDPS Act, which were subsequently retracted by them, other circumstantial evidence brought on record by appellant-NCB ought to have dissuaded High Court from exercising its discretion in favour of respondent and concluding that there were reasonable grounds to justify that he was not guilty of such an offence under NDPS Act – Narrow parameters of bail available under Section 37 of Act, have not been satisfied in facts of instant case – Length of period of his custody or fact that charge-sheet has been filed and trial has commenced are by themselves not considerations that can be treated as persuasive grounds for granting relief to respondent under Section 37 of NDPS Act – Impugned order releasing respondent on post-arrest bail, quashed and set aside. (Paras 15, 17, 18 and 19)
Facts of the case:
Appellant-NCB is aggrieved by the judgment and order dated 16.03.2021 passed by the High Court of Delhi granting post-arrest bail to respondent-accused in Case No.SC/1334/2020, where respondent is facing trial for the offence under Sections 8/22 and 29 of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
Findings of Court:
Admissions made by the respondent while in custody to the effect that he had illegally traded in narcotic drugs, will have to be kept aside. However, this was not the only material that the appellant- NCB had relied on to oppose the bail application filed by the respondent. The appellant-NCB had specifically stated that it was the disclosures made by the respondent that had led the NCB team to arrive at and raid the godown of the co-accused which resulted in recovery of a large haul of different psychotropic substances in the form of tablets, injections and syrups.
Result : Appeals allowed

JUDGMENT

Hima Kohli, J.

Leave granted.

2. The appellant-NCB is aggrieved by the judgment and order dated 16.03.2021 passed by the High Court of Delhi granting post-arrest bail to the respondent-accused in Case No.SC/1334/2020, where the respondent is facing trial for the offence under Sections 8/22 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 [For short "NDPS Act"].

3. The case set up by the prosecution is that on the basis of secret information received by the officials of the Narcotic Control Bureau ["For short “NCB"] on 09.01.2020, that one parcel had been booked by a person from Agra named Gaurav Kumar Aggarwal, to be delivered to one Manoj Kumar at Ludhiana, Punjab and was stored at the godown of a courier company at Village Samalkha, Kapasehra, New Delhi, suspected to contain NRX tablets, being a narcotic drug, the NCB team reached the said godown and conducted search proceedings. The suspected parcel was identified and opened in the presence of two independent witnesses from amongst the staff members of the courier company. The said parcel was opened and 50,000 Tramadol tablets weighing 20 kgs were recovered. As the tablets contained in the suspected parcel had been mis-declared and were without any valid bill, seizure proceedings were initiated by the officials of the NCB.

4. In the voluntary statement made by the accused, Gaurav Kumar Aggarwal under Section 67 of the NDPS Act, he stated that he had booked the parcel through a courier company to be delivered to Manoj Kumar, resident of Ludhiana, Punjab and that he had purchased the Tramadol tablets recovered during the search proceedings from the respondent herein, without any bill or prescription. Rather, it was mentioned on the parcel that it contained “surgical items”. The accused Gaurav Kumar Aggarwal further stated that the respondent herein had purchased the above medicines from one Promod Jaipuria alias Davinder Khandelwal, a resident of Jaipur and the son-in-law of Promod Jaipuria used to look after his business in Agra and that he had a godown where the drugs were stored.

5. The prosecution further stated that Gaurav Kumar Aggarwal had disclosed that he knew where the residence and the shop of the respondent were located and he could identify them. Accordingly, the said accused person accompanied the Raiding team to the premises of the respondent herein. On the disclosure made by the respondent herein, the Raiding team proceeded to the godown of Promod Jaipuria and conducted a search during which a cache of drugs covered under the NDPS Act, were recovered. The said drugs included 6,64,940 tablets of different psychotropic substances including Tramadol, Zolpidem and Alprazolam tablets/capsules weighing around 328.82 Kgs, 1400 Pazinc Injections amounting to 1.4 ltrs and 80 Corex Syrup bottles weighing 8 ltrs. Another 9,900 tablets weighing 990 gms. were recovered during the search conducted by the NCB officials at the premises of the co-accused, Manoj Kumar at Ludhiana.

6. In his statement recorded under Section 67 of the NDPS Act, the respondent herein disclosed that he had been illegally selling and purchasing the said tablets and capsules from Promod Jaipuria. The respondent was taken into custody on 11th January, 2020. He moved two applications for grant of bail before the learned Special Judge, NDPS. Both the said applications were vehemently opposed by the appellant-NCB and were rejected by the Special Judge, NDPS. Aggrieved by the order dated 21st July, 2020, whereby his second bail application was dismissed, the respondent filed a petition under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 [For short "Cr.P.C."] for grant of bail which has been allowed by the impugned order passed by the learned Single Judge of the High Court.

7. Arguing for the appellant-NCB, Mr. Jayant K. Sud, learned Additional Solicitor General, submitted that while passing the impugned order granting bail to the respondent, the High Court has erred in observing t