Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 – s.37 – Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – s.438 – Quantity of narcotic substance seized multiple times the commercial quantity – Anticipatory bail granted by High Court, satisfaction in terms of the rider contained in s.37 not recorded – Challenge to: Held: For entertaining a prayer for bail in a case involving recovery of commercial quantity of narcotic drug or psychotropic substance, the Court would have to mandatorily record the satisfaction in terms of the rider contained in s.37, NDPS Act – In the event, the Public Prosecutor opposes the prayer for bail either regular or anticipatory, the Court would have to record a satisfaction that there are grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the offence alleged and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail – In the present case, High Court not only omitted to record any such satisfaction, but rather completely ignored the factum of recovery of narcotic substance (ganja), multiple times the commercial quantity – In case of recovery of such a huge quantity of narcotic substance, the Courts should be slow in granting even regular bail to the accused what to talk of anticipatory bail more so when the accused is alleged to be having criminal antecedents – High Court failed to consider that the accused had criminal antecedents and was already arraigned in two previous cases under the NDPS Act – Impugned order being cryptic and perverse on the face of the record is quashed and set aside. [Paras 9-12, 15]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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