Lay down parameters for bail, says HC judge

: A Punjab and Haryana HC single judge bench has referred an issue of laying down parameters for grant or refusal of bails in commercial quantity drugs seizure cases to Chief Justice.

A Punjab and Haryana high court single judge bench has referred an issue of laying down parameters for grant or refusal of bails in commercial quantity drugs seizure cases, to the chief justice.

The high court bench of justice Sudhir Mittal was dealing with a case, where the accused had applied for bail for the third time.

The bench came across judgments with divergent views on the issue. Hence, he has referred the matter to chief justice to broadly lay guidelines in view of the Supreme Court judgment.

The SC while dealing with Section 37 of NDPS Act had held that before granting bail, the court has to have “reasonable grounds” for believing that accused is not guilty of offence that he has been charged and that he is unlikely to commit offence under NDPS Act while on bail again.

The second condition is of granting opportunity to public prosecutor to oppose the bail. This region see large number of drugs cases FIRs. In view of SC judgment, it has become difficult for courts to decide bail matters.

The trials go on for years and there is always opposition from prosecution for bails. It may also have cascading effects on number of undertials going up substantially.

The public prosecutor in the case in hand had argued that the second bail application was rejected as the petitioner, Samdarsh Kumar, a Chandigarh resident, had not been able to show that the twin conditions as mandated under Section 37 of the Act were fulfilled. No new evidence has been brought on record to take a different view by the court, the government counsel had argued.

On the other hand, petitioner’s counsel, Prateek Gupta had submitted that due to long period of incarceration, the petitioner be granted bail. He had referred to a large number of judgments, in which bail was granted.

The court noted that there were divergent views and also took note of “large number” of judgements cited by petitioner’s counsel. Referring the matter to a larger bench the court said that matter be placed before the chief justice for constituting a larger bench to settle the issue of fulfillment of the twin conditions prescribed in Section 37(1)(b) of the Act.