DANVIR SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present is a second petition filed under Sec. 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for grant of regular bail to the petitioner in FIR No.67 dtd. 7/2/2022, under Ss. 22/61/85 of NDPS Act, registered at Police Station Sohana, District SAS Nagar, Mohali.

(2.) Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted that the petitioner is in custody for 2 years and 1 month and charges in the present case were framed on 10/2/2023 which is more than 1 year and only 6 witnesses out of 15 have been examined but no material witness has been examined. He submitted that only the formal witness who has deposited the sample in the Forensic Laboratory, Clerk of office of the Superintendent of Police and other formal witnesses have been examined but for the reasons best known to the prosecution none of the recovery witness or a part of the police party has been examined. He further submitted that even as per FIR, the story as put forward by the police was that the policy party was searching the bad elements prior to the elections in the State of Punjab and they saw the petitioner on a motorcycle and there has been a recovery of 18000 tablets of Diphenoxylate from the petitioner. He submitted that it is a case where the aforesaid alleged recovery has taken place just prior to the Assembly Election and it was a case of political enmity only particularly in view of the fact that the petitioner was not involved in any other case except for one case under the NDPS Act wherein he has already been acquitted and only to settle the scores on political side that the petitioner has been falsely implicated in the present case. To substantiate his arguments, he submitted that even as per FIR itself, the recovery has been shown to be of tablets and the batch number of the same has been mentioned, whereas no such batch number is mentioned in the FSL report which is attached as Annexure P-2. He submitted that in this way it appears that some other tablets have been planted upon the petitioner and that is the reason as to why the batch number is not mentioned in the FSL report. He submitted that be that as it may, he has already faced incarceration for 2 years and 1 month and no material witness has been examined till date and considering the judgments of the Hon' ble Supreme Court in Satender Kumar Antil Versus Central Bureau of Investigation and another [2022 (10) SCC 51], Mohd. Muslim @ Hussain Versus State (NCT of Delhi) [2023 AIR (SC) 1648], Dheeraj Kumar Shukla v. The State of Uttar Pradesh (Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No.(s) 6690 of 2022) AND Rabi Prakash Versus State of Odisha, Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No.4169 of 2023, he may be considered for the grant of regular bail.

(3.) On the other hand, Mr. Adeshwar Singh Pannu, AAG, Punjab has submitted on instructions from ASI Raj Kumar that so far as the custody of the petitioner is concerned, the same is correct and it is also correct that the charges in the present case were framed on 10/2/2023 but no material witness has been examined till date. He submitted that neither the recovery witnesses nor the witnesses who were part of the police party have been examined. He submitted that since the recovery falls in the category of commercial quantity, the prayer of the petitioner is hit by the bar contained under Sec. 37 of the NDPS Act.