Filing Of Chargesheet Has No Persuasive Value For Granting Bail In NDPS Case: Tripura High Court Cancels Bail

The Court said that to grant bail to an accused arrested for the alleged commission of an offence under the provisions of the NDPS Act, the Court or the Public Prosecutor must be satisfied that there is reasonable ground to believe that the accused is not guilty of committing the alleged offence.

The Court was hearing an application filed under Section 439(2) read with Section 482 Cr.P.C. for cancellation of bail granted to the accused who was arrested under Sections 20(b)(ii)(c), 25 and 29 of the NDPS Act.

The bench of Justice Arindam Lodh observed, “I can easily hold that mere filing of charge-sheet is not a ground at all or has no persuasive value to grant bail to an accused of allegedly committing offence under the penal provisions of NDPS Act.”

PP Raju Datta appeared for the Applicant and Advocate S. Ali appeared for the Respondent.

In the present application, the counsel for the accused, strongly opposed the State's petition to cancel the respondent's bail and argued that the case was registered by the police with ulterior motives and highlighted discrepancies in the GD entry. He also contended that Section 37 of the NDPS Act does not mandate keeping the accused in custody after the charge sheet is filed, a position supported by the Special Judge. Conversely, the applicant State argued that there are no grounds to believe the accused is not guilty and attributed the date discrepancies to possible printing errors.

According to the Court, the Special Judge has not kept in mind that granting bail to an accused of committing offences under the penal provisions of the NDPS Act is an exception and bail is not a rule.

The Court mentioned the decision of the Supreme Court in Narcotics Control Bureau vs. Mohit Aggarwal, reported in 2022 SCC OnLine SC 891, and quoted, “We may clarify that at the stage of examining an application for bail in the context of Section 37 of the Act, the Court is not required to record a finding that the accused person is not guilty. The Court is also not expected to weigh the evidence for arriving at a finding as to whether the accused has committed an offence under the NDPS Act or not. The entire exercise that the Court is expected to undertake at this stage is for the limited purpose of releasing him on bail. Thus, the focus is on the availability of reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the offences that he has been charged with and he is unlikely to commit an offence under the Act while on bail.”

The Court said that the materials available on records do not suggest anything that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the accused is not guilty of committing the alleged offence under Sections 20(b)(ii)(c), 25 and 29 of the NDPS Act.

Accordingly, the Court allowed the application for cancellation of bail of the accused.

Cause Title: State of Tripura v. Mijanur Rahaman

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