MANGAL SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present accused petitioners are driver and owner of the truck respectively. THEy have been arrested on 23. 5. 1996 by the Intelligence Officer, Directorate Revenue Intelligence Department for the offence punishable inder Section 8/21 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotrophic Substances Act (for short N. D. P. S. Act ). Alongwith the present accused Labh Singh, owner of the Smuggled `heroine' and other accused Harjeet Singh, Arvinder Singh and Mohd. Arshad were also arrested. Huge quantity of 53 Kg `heroine' was seized by the officer from the truck. Earlier accused Arvinder Singh filed misc. bail application No. 166/97 before this Court which was rejected by A. S. Godara, J. on 26. 2. 1997. While rejecting the same this Court observed that, -``however, since accused is in judicial custody for a quite pretty long time. THE learned trial Judge is directed that he should accord top priority to the case, expediting its disposal as early as possible. ''

(2.) THE present accused petitioners filed bail application No. 467/98 before the learned Sessions Judge, Bikaner, who is also designated Judge under N. D. P. S. Act, for releasing them on bail on the ground that they have been falsely involved in the case and that since last two years they are in judicial custody and the prosecution has also examined 13 witnesses out of 21 cited in the charge sheet. THE said petition was objected by the other side on the ground that a serious allegation against accused for smuggling of `heroine' has been levelled and the bail application of co-accused Arvinder Singh was also rejected by the High Court, therefore, bail application be rejected. THE learned Judge has rejected the bail application on 6. 7. 98 by observing that,''

(3.) HOWEVER, there is lot of substance in what Mr. Chaudhary has submitted that the trial Court and the learned Special Public Prosecutor both failed to discharge their duty to see to it that trial is over as early as possible as directed by this Court on 26. 2. 97. It appears from the order sheets of the trial Court that the approach of the learned Judge in this matter was a casual approach and he has not taken the Court's order dated 26. 2. 1997 passed in misc. bail application No. 166/97, seriously. If the witnesses were not remaining present then the Court must see to it that witnesses remain present first by issuing bailable warrant and then non-bailable warrant, but simply adjourning the case is not sufficient. In fact the special public prosecutor also failed to discharge his duty to keep the witnesses present particularly when they are officers of department itself. HOWEVER, on the assurance given by the learned counsel Shri Nahar that his counter part - special public prosecutor before the trial Court shall keep all the witnesses present and see to it that trial is over as per the hope expressed by this Court on 26. 2. 1997, the learned Judge is dir- ected to expedite the trial and dispose of the same as early as possible and in any case not later than 31. 12. 1998.