SUBODH KUNDU Vs. STATE OF CALCUTTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The judgment of the Court was as follows: In this application for bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the accused- petitioner Subodh Kundu has prayed for bail in connection with Ranaghat P.S. Case No. 139/2002 dated 20/4/2002 under Section 20(1) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psycho-tropic Substances Act, hereinafter referred to as N.D.P.S. Act for short.

(2.) The allegations against the petitioner in brief, as transpire from the F.I.R. are that acting on a source information, the complainant along with force, held raid in the house of the petitioner on 22/4/2002 in between 15.05 hrs. and 16.55 hrs. and during the course of search 20 Kgs. 450 gms. of Ganja (suspected to be) was recovered from a big steel trunk. The said article responded positive to the test of Ganja on field test and accordingly seized under proper seizure list in accordance with law and the petitioner could not produce any document in support of his licit possession of the said weight of Ganja. The petitioner was arrested by the Investigating Agency on the same day (22.4.02) and produced before the learned Judge Special Court under N.D.P.S. Act Nadia on the next day (23.4.02) and on the prayer of the Investigating Agency the petitioner was remanded to police custody till 26.4.2002 and thereafter remanded to jail custody.

(3.) It is not disputed that the seized ganja comes within the category of commercial quantity and as such the statutory period for completion of investigation as envisaged under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 36A(4) of the N.D.P.S. Act (as amended) is 180 days.