Evidence Of Public Officer Can't Be Disbelieved Merely Because He Is A Police Officer: Allahabad High Court Denies Bail In NDPS Case

"Evidence of a public officer cannot be thrown only on the ground that he is a police officer," the Allahabad High Court has held recently while denying bail to an accused allegedly involved in a case pertaining to recover of 1,025 kg ganja.

Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav discarded the argument that the arresting officials did not comply with the mandatory provisions of search and seizure under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

The applicant had argued that no public witness was taken by the police in the alleged recovery proceedings despite the alleged recovery was made on the Highway.

However, the Court noted,

"The recovery was made at night and due to pandemic prevalent at that time and seclusion no public witness could be secured. Apart from this, the law is well settled that the evidence of a public officer cannot be thrown only on the ground that he is a police officer."

In the instant case, during patrolling, a huge amount of Ganja weighing 1025 kg was recovered from a dumper truck which was driven by co-accused Vinod Singh and the applicant was sitting on the truck. Accordingly, the applicant and the co-accused were booked under Section 8/20/29 of the NDPS Act.

The Applicant moved an application under Section 439 CrPC seeking enlargement on bail.

The counsel for the applicant contended that the applicant was merely a passenger in the vehicle and had no knowledge about recovered contraband nor any contraband was recovered from his possession. The counsel also submitted that, during arrest, mandatory provisions of Sections 42, 50, 52, 53, 57 of NDPS Act were not complied and hence the applicant must be enlarged on bail.

The counsel for the State submitted that the applicant was involved in the inter-state trafficking which was voluntary admitted in a statement made by the applicant under Section 67 of the NDPS Act. The counsel also stated that compliance of Section 50 of NDPS Act was made as the accused were searched in the presence of a gazetted officer. Further the counsel stated that, since the recovery made in the instant matter is more than the commercial quantity, it amounts to the attraction of section 37 of NDPS Act, hence the bail application is liable to be rejected.

Findings

The court relied on the Supreme Court's judgement in Union of India Vs Md. Nawaz Khan where the court held that absence of possession of contraband by the accused cannot be the sole ground for grant of bail.

"Based on the above precedent, the test which the High Court and this Court are required to apply while granting bail is whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the accused has not committed an offence and whether he is likely to commit any offence while on bail. Given the seriousness of offences punishable under the NDPS Act and in order to curb the menace of drug-trafficking in the country, stringent parameters for the grant of bail under the NDPS Act have been prescribed," it was held therein.

On absence of recovery of the contraband from the possession of the respondent

The court referred to the judgement of Union Of India vs Rattan Mallik and stated that – "the absence of possession of the contraband on the person of the accused does not absolve him of the level of scrutiny required under Section 37 (1)(b)(ii) of the NDPS Act."

On entitlement of Bail –

The court relied on the judgement given by the Apex Court namely State vs. Syed Amir Hasnain, (2002) 10 SCC 88 where it was held that an accused would not be entitled to be released under the provisions of the NDPS Act unless the provisions of Section 37 of the Act are satisfied.

On no public witness was taken by the police in the alleged recovery proceedings, the court stated that –

"it is evident that the recovery was made at night and due to pandemic prevalent at that time and seclusion no public witness could be secured. Apart from this, the law is well settled that the evidence of a public officer cannot be thrown only on the ground that he is a police officer."

Accordingly, the bail application was rejected.

"from the perusal of the evidences, collected during investigation so far, prima facie, the involvement of the accused in the present case cannot be ruled out. No reason is found to falsely implicate the applicant/accused. Therefore, there is no good ground to release the applicant­-accused on bail at this stage."

Related Reads:

S.50 NDPS Act | Personal Search Conducted In Presence Of ACP Not Bad Merely Because He Belongs To Police Dept: Karnataka High Court

Relying Only On Evidence Of IO For Convicting Accused Under NDPS Act Is Not Proper: Chhattisgarh HC

Case Title: Shankar Varik @ Vikram v. Union of India

Citation: 

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