PARAMJIT SINGH CHAHAL Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order shall dispose of three bail applications bearing Nos. Crl. M-8339 of 2014 filed by Paramjit Singh Chahal, Crl. M-8519 of 2014 and Crl. M-8516 of 2014 filed by Jagjit Singh Chahal. While the first two petitions relate to grant of bail in FIR No. 56 dated 15.5.2013 under Sections 379, 411, 473 and 120-B IPC and Sections 21 and 22 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) at Police Station Banur, District Patiala, the last petition relates to prayer for bail in FIR No. 109 dated 24.12.2013 at Police Station Lambra, District Jalandhar, under Sections 21, 27 and 29 of the Act.

(2.) While petitioner Jagjit Singh Chahal is seeking bail having been in incarceration for the last more than four months, petitioner Paramjit Singh Chahal physically surrendered before this Court on 6.3.2014 by relying upon a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Niranjan Singh and another v. Prabhakar Rajaram Kharote and others, 1980 2 SCC 559 and Bharat Maratha v. State of Maharashtra,2008 BCR 516. This Court accepted the surrender and issued notice to the State upon which learned Assistant Advocate General, Punjab, appearing for the State, fairly conceded that this Court had ample jurisdiction to accept the surrender and deal with the petition appropriately.

(3.) On 6.3.2014, it was urged on behalf of the petitioner Paramjit Singh Chahal that he and his brother were inter-alia running pharmaceutical units in Himachal Pradesh and that the police had indulged in an abuse of process of law by implicating and arresting his brother. He had urged that his brother had already approached this Court vide Civil Writ Petition No. 88 of 2014 seeking investigation by an independent agency like CBI and vide order dated 9.1.2014, a co-ordinate Bench of this Court issued notice of motion to the State. The said petitioner relies upon the judgments of the Hon'ble Apex Court in Mukesh Kishanpuria v. State of West Bengal, 2010 2 RCR(Cri) 830 and Sukhwant Singh v. State of Punjab, 2009 7 SCC 559, to contend that in the power to grant bail, there is an inherent power in the Court to grant interim bail to a person, pending final disposal of the bail application. It was also observed that such interim release on bail will have to be considered on the date of filing itself.