ANUJ KUMAR UPADHYAY Vs. STATE NCT OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By way of the present application under Sec. 439 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the petitioner seeks grant of regular bail in case FIR bearing no.111/2016 registered under Ss. 20/25/29 of the NDPS Act, 1985 at Police Station Crime Branch, Delhi.

(2.) Briefly stated, as per the case of prosecution, on receipt of secret information on 5/7/2016, SI Jai Prakash was informed that one Daya Shankar Rai @ Shankar Yadav, who is residing in Molarband Extention, Badarpur Border, Delhi and is a permanent resident of Bihar, procures ganja from Odisha via Moradabad, UP, and traffics the same along with his associate namely Anuj, who is a taxi driver. He was also informed that they will traffic ganja from Moradabad, UP in taxi of Anuj having Regn. No. DL-1YE-6453, at around 8:45 AM to 9:15 AM, near Railway track Bhairo Marg, Pragati Maidan, Delhi. The said information was reduced into writing, a team was deployed near the place of information, and at the instance of the secret informer, two persons namely Anuj Kumar Upadhyay, aged about 30 years, and Daya Shankar, aged about 42 years were apprehended with Taxi no DL-1YE 6453, at about 6.00AM. A formal search of both the accused persons as well as their Taxi was conducted and 80 Kilograms ganja was recovered from the car, which was kept in four plastic gunny bags, each plastic bag containing 20 kilogram of ganja. Out of these four bags, three were in the boot space of the car and one bag was lying on the back seat of the car, held by co-accused Daya Shankar. Samples were drawn, and the contraband along with the samples was seized separately. Pursuant to this, the present FIR was registered. Samples of the contraband were sent to FSL, Rohini, Delhi and the report received was positive. On interrogation, co-accused Daya Shankar disclosed that he had visited the jungle in Kotpad, Odisha and had booked the ganja from one Nar Singh, who had delivered the same in Moradabad, UP through one Harun. Thereafter, he along with accused/applicant Anuj had gone to Moradabad in applicant's taxi for carrying ganja to Delhi. He also disclosed that he had brought ganja from Moradabad several times. Co-accused Harun, earlier declared as Proclaimed Offender, was arrested later on.

(3.) Learned counsel for the accused/applicant states that the applicant has been in judicial custody for more than six years. It is further argued that petitioner was not in 'conscious possession' of ganja and he was merely a driver of the taxi and thus, had no role to play in possession of contraband or any other offence under NDPS Act. Learned counsel for applicant has also placed reliance on the judgment of Apex Court in Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee v. Union of India, 1994 6 SCC 731. Reliance has also been placed on several other judgments passed by Coordinate benches of this Court.