Supreme Court: In a criminal appeal against the judgment and final order dated 14-9-2023 passed by the Rajasthan High Court, wherein the Court dismissed the application seeking bail filed by the petitioner, the division bench of Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, JJ. said that considering the evidence of the official prosecution witnesses, who have not supported the prosecution and the way the sample was collected, this is a case where the accused deserves to be enlarged on bail.
In this case, the petitioner, a young boy of merely 24 years of age and has been incarcerated for more than 15 months, for the offences under Section 8 read with Section 15 of the NDPS Act, 1985.
The petitioner submitted that the remaining three co-accused have been granted bail by the High Court and thus, the petitioner is entitled to be released on bail on the ground of parity. Further, during trial, both the independent witnesses have stated that the prosecution’s case is false, and no such recovery was made. There are grave procedural violations also by the State:
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Firstly, there is a grave violation of the Standing Order, as the officer concerned must collect samples from each sack allegedly recovered from the accused. While in this case, only one sample was collected from all five sacks.
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Secondly, the allegedly seized contraband was sent to Forensic Science Lab after 8 days while the prescribed limit is to send it within 72 hours, raising doubt on the prosecution case’s genuineness.
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Thirdly, there is no material to prove that the allegedly seized contraband was in commercial quantity, and it is only to implicate the petitioner in a false case that his name has been mentioned in the FIR.
The Court said that after considering the evidence of the official prosecution witnesses, who have not supported the prosecution and the way the sample was collected, this is a case where the accused deserves to be enlarged on bail.
The Bench directed the accused to be produced before the Special Court within one week from today. Further, it directed the Special Court to enlarge the accused on bail on appropriate terms and conditions till the disposal of the trial.
[Deshraj Gurjar v State of Rajasthan, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 119, Order dated 05-02-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Petitioner(s): Advocate —On -Record Namit Saxena
For Respondent(s): Advocate Gurkirat Kaur, Advocate-On-Record Milind Kumar, Advocate Gulshan Parveen Khan