The Twin Conditions For Bail Under Section 37 Of NDPS Act Must Be Satisfied: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court, on July 19, while setting aside Delhi High Court's bail order, held that while dealing with bail applications in cases under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, the focus has to be on availability of reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the offences that he has been charged with and he is unlikely to commit an offence under the Act while on bail.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli, were dealing with a Special Leave Petition filed by the Narcotics Control Bureau against an accused who was enlarged on bail by the Delhi High Court. 

The case pertained to a secret information which led to a major recovery of contraband. The factum of recovery of additional material came to take place on the basis of disclosure statement of the respondent. The recovery included 6,64,940 tablets of different psychotropic substances including Tramadol, Zolpidem and Alprazolam tablets/capsules weighing around 328.82 Kgs, 1400 Pazinc Injections amounting to 1.4 ltrs and 80 Corex Syrup bottles weighing 8 ltrs. Another 9,900 tablets weighing 990 grams were recovered during the search conducted by the NCB officials at the premises of the co-accused, Manoj Kumar at Ludhiana.

The special court denied bail to the accused in two applications filed by him. The High Court, however, granted bail to him on the ground that as per the judgment of the Supreme Court in Tofan Singh v. State of Tamil Nadu (2020) SCC Online SC 882, which held that confessional statements under Section 67 of the NDPS Act are inadmissible in court, the respondent had no specific evidence or recovery except a disclosure statement on the basis of which a large cache of proscribed substances was found. 

Additional Solicitor General Jayant K. Sud, appearing for NCB, argued that the High Court had erred by not taking into account Section 37 of the Act which narrows the discretion of a judge while deciding bail applications.

Section 37 of the NDPS Act envisages twin conditions for grant of bail. These conditions are in addition to those mentioned under the Cr.P.C. 

The counsel for the respondent, PK Jain, submitted before the Court, that the accused had already spent more than one year in prison. He further stated that no bail condition was violated by the respondent and that no recovery was made from him. 

The Supreme Court while describing the importance of Section 37 of the NDPS Act, observed that, "the expression “reasonable grounds” used in clause (b) of Sub-Section (1) of Section 37 would mean credible, plausible and grounds for the Court to believe that the accused person is not guilty of the alleged offence."

The Court noted that the High Court's reasoning that the confessional statements was the only material against the respondent was not correct. The appellant-NCB had specifically stated that it was the disclosures made by the respondent that had led the NCB team to arrive at and raid the godown of the co-accused, Promod Jaipuria which resulted in the recovery of a large haul of different psychotropic substances in the form of tablets, injections and syrups, the Court observed. 

While elaborating the contemplation of Section 37 of the NDPS Act, the apex court stated that, "for arriving at any such conclusion, such facts and circumstances must exist in a case that can persuade the Court to believe that the accused person would not have committed such an offence."