Punjab-Haryana High Court
Gurpreet Singh @ Gora vs State Of Punjab on 2 April, 2025
Author: Sandeep Moudgil
Bench: Sandeep Moudgil
Neutral Citation No:=2025:PHHC:044488
CRM-M-15101-2025 1
226
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT
CHANDIGARH
CRM-M-15101-2025
DATE OF DECISION: 02.04.2025
GURPREET SINGH @ GORA ...PETITIONER
Versus
STATE OF PUNJAB ... RESPONDENT
CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL
Present: Mr.HPS Sidhu, Advocate for the petitioner(s).
Mr. J.S. Rattu, DAG, Punjab.
***
SANDEEP MOUDGIL, J (ORAL)
1. Prayer
This petition has been filed under Section 483 of Bharatiya
Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 for grant of regular bail to the petitioner in
FIR No. 25 dated 19.02.2024 under section 22 of Narcotics Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances Act 1985 (Section 29 NDPS added later on)
Police Station Kot Ise Khan, District Moga (Annexure P-1).
2. Prosecution story set up in the present case as per the version
in the FIR reads as under :-
‘Station House Officer, P.S. Kot Ise Khan. Fateh. Today I
ASI alongwith HC Lakhvir Singh 1161, Moga. SC Gagandeep
Singh 1244/M, CT Jaspreet Singh 548/M were going in a
government vehicle TATA Sumo PB 130 6823 on Patrolling duty
via village Balkhandi, Handiyala, Singhpura, Kot Ise Khan to Zira
Road and were present near Bus stand Singhpura when the
informer came and informed that Gurpreet Singh @Gopi son of
Bhola singh and Bhinder Singh @Kulla son of Ranjit Singh1 of 8
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@Mukha resident of Randiyala are drug Addict and sell the drug
and for that they even do snatching. Today they are sitting in the
cremation ground outside the village Talwandi on Kot Ise Khan
and they can be apprehended alongwith the heavy quantity of
intoxicant Tablets. The information is reliableand act of the
aforesaid accused falls under Section 22/61/85 of NDPS Act. Ruqa
against Gurpreet Singh @Gopi and Bhinder Singh @Kulla is
being sent through CT Jaspreet Singh 598/M to police station. I
being ASI of local rank cannot investigate under NDPS Act
therefore regular NGO be sent. PCR be informed and special
report be issued. Sd/-Buta Singh ASI.”
3. Contentions
On behalf of the petitioner
Learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the
petitioner has been falsely implicated in the present case. He submits that
as per the report of the FSL contents of 30 loose intoxicating tablets
containing salt of Etizolam were claimed to have been recovered from the
possession of the petitioner and upon calculation, the total weight of the
tablets is found to be 3.99 grams whereas the commercial quantity starts
from 2.5 grams which is marginally over and above from the commercial
quantity. He further submits that the investigation in this case is complete
as challan stands presented on 28.05.2024 charges stands framed on
12.08.2024 and out of 13 prosecution witnesses, none has been examined
so far, meaning thereby, conclusion is trial is likely to take time, therefore,
prays for grant of regular bail to the petitioner.
On behalf of the State
On the other hand, learned State Counsel appearing on
advance notice, accepts notice on behalf of respondent-State and has filed
the custody certificate of the petitioner, which is taken on record.
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Learned State Counsel on instructions from the Investigating
Officer opposes the prayer for grant of regular bail stating that the
petitioner is a habitual offender as he is involved in one another FIR and
the recovered tablets falls under the quantity of commercial category,
therefore, rigorous of Section 37 of NDPS Act would be attracted.
4. Analysis
Be that as it may, considering the custody period i.e. 1
year, 1 month and 10 days, for which the petitioner has suffered
sufficient incarceration; the contraband recovered i.e. 30 loose
intoxicating tablets containing salt of Etizolam is weighing 3.99 grams
which is marginally over and above from the commercial quantity, in
addition to the fact that the investigation is complete, challan stands
presented on 28.05.2024 charges stands framed on 12.08.2024 and out of
13 prosecution witnesses, none has been examined so far, which is
suffice for this Court to infer that the conclusion of trial will take a
long time for which the petitioner cannot be detained behind the bars
for an indefinite period.
Taking into consideration the following orders passed by
the Coordinate Benches of this Court wherein the recovery from the
accused was marginally over and above the commercial quantity for
the respective contraband in each case, the Courts have taken a lenient
view while granting bail to the accused therein i.e. Sukhchain Singh @
Manga Versus State of Punjab, CRM-M-7857-2022 decided on
04.04.2022, Pardeep Singh versus State of Punjab, CRM-M-46244-
2022 decided on 19.01.2023, Hari Yadav @ Haiya versus State of
Punjab (CRM-M-37645-2021)’ decided on 11.11.2022, ‘Jang Kanwar
Versus State of Punjab (CRM-M-53415-2021)’ decided on 19.01.2022,
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‘Shankar Prashad Chanau Versus The State of Punjab, CRM-M-24090-
2020, decided on 27.08.2020, Gurpreet Kumar Versus State of Punjab,
CRM-M-17021-2021, decided on 31.08.2021, Salim Versus State of
Haryana, CRM-M-42436-2020, decided on 24.02.2021, Gagandeep
Versus State of Punjab, CRM-M-3055-2021, decided on 27.01.2021,
Gurpreet Gopi Versus State of Punjab, CRM-M-41039-2019, Singh
decided on 26.02.2020, Dalbara Singh Versus State of Punjab, CRM-
M-47880-2022 decided on 16.01.2023’, and Vivek Watts versus State
of Punjab, CRM-M-13791-2022 decided on 15.02.2023.
Reliance can be placed upon the judgment of the Apex Court
rendered in “Dataram versus State of Uttar Pradesh and another“,
2018(2) R.C.R. (Criminal) 131, wherein it has been held that the grant
of bail is a general rule and putting persons in jail or in prison or in
correction home is an exception. Relevant paras of the said judgment is
reproduced as under:-
“2. A fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is
the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a
person is believed to be innocent until found guilty.
However, there are instances in our criminal law where a
reverse onus has been placed on an accused with regard
to some specific offences but that is another matter and
does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect
of other offences. Yet another important facet of our
criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the
general rule and putting a person in jail or in a prison or
in a correction home (whichever expression one may wish
to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic
principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result
that more and more persons are being incarcerated and
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for longer periods. This does not do any good to our
criminal jurisprudence or to our society.
3. There is no doubt that the grant or denial of bail is
entirely the discretion of the judge considering a case but
even so, the exercise of judicial discretion has been
circumscribed by a large number of decisions rendered by
this Court and by every High Court in the country. Yet,
occasionally there is a necessity to introspect whether
denying bail to an accused person is the right thing to do
on the facts and in the circumstances of a case.
4. While so introspecting, among the factors that need to
be considered is whether the accused was arrested during
investigations when that person perhaps has the best
opportunity to tamper with the evidence or influence
witnesses. If the investigating officer does not find it
necessary to arrest an accused person during
investigations, a strong case should be made out for
placing that person in judicial custody after a charge
sheet is filed. Similarly, it is important to ascertain
whether the accused was participating in the
investigations to the satisfaction of the investigating
officer and was not absconding or not appearing when
required by the investigating officer. Surely, if an accused
is not hiding from the investigating officer or is hiding due
to some genuine and expressed fear of being victimised, it
would be a factor that a judge would need to consider in
an appropriate case. It is also necessary for the judge to
consider whether the accused is a first-time offender or
has been accused of other offences and if so, the nature of
such offences and his or her general conduct. The poverty
or the deemed indigent status of an accused is also an
extremely important factor and even Parliament has taken
notice of it by incorporating an Explanation to section
436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. An equally
soft approach to incarceration has been taken by
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Parliament by inserting section 436A in the Code of
Criminal Procedure, 1973.
5. To put it shortly, a humane attitude is required to be
adopted by a judge, while dealing with an application for
remanding a suspect or an accused person to police
custody or judicial custody. There are several reasons for
this including maintaining the dignity of an accused
person, howsoever poor that person might be, the
requirements of Article 21 of the Constitution and the fact
that there is enormous overcrowding in prisons, leading to
social and other problems as noticed by this Court in In
Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons, 2017(4) RCR
(Criminal) 416: 2017(5) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.)
408 : (2017) 10 SCC 658
6. The historical background of the provision for bail has
been elaborately and lucidly explained in a recent
decision delivered in Nikesh Tara chand Shah v. Union of
India, 2017 (13) SCALE 609 going back to the days of the
Magna Carta. In that decision, reference was made to
Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC
565 in which it is observed that it was held way back in
Nagendra v. King-Emperor, AIR 1924 Calcutta 476 that
bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Reference was
also made to Emperor v. Hutchinson, AIR 1931
Allahabad 356 wherein it was observed that grant of bail
is the rule and refusal is the exception. The provision for
bail is therefore age-old and the liberal interpretation to
the provision for bail is almost a century old, going back
to colonial days.
7. However, we should not be understood to mean that
bail should be granted in every case. The grant or
refusal of bail is entirely within the discretion of the
judge hearing the matter and though that discretion is
unfettered, it must be exercised judiciously and in a
humane manner and compassionately. Also, conditions
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for the grant of bail ought not to be so strict as to be
incapable of compliance, thereby making the grant of
bail illusory.”
Therefore, to elucidate further, this Court is conscious of
the basic and fundamental principle of law that right to speedy trial is
a part of reasonable, fair and just procedure enshrined under Article 21
of the Constitution of India. This constitutional right cannot be denied
to the accused as is the mandate of the Apex court in “Hussainara
Khatoon and ors (IV) v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, Patna“,
(1980) 1 SCC 98. Besides this, reference can be drawn upon that pre-
conviction period of the under-trials should be as short as possible
keeping in view the nature of accusation and the severity of
punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting
evidence, reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or
apprehension of threat to the complainant.
As far as the pendency of other cases and involvement of the
petitioner in other cases is concerned, reliance can be placed upon the
order of this Court rendered in CRM-M-25914-2022 titled as
“Baljinder Singh alias Rock vs. State of Punjab” decided on
02.03.2023, wherein, while referring Article 21 of the Constitution of
India, this Court has held that no doubt, at the time of granting bail, the
criminal antecedents of the petitioner are to be looked into but at the
same time it is equally true that the appreciation of evidence during the
course of trial has to be looked into with reference to the evidence in
that case alone and not with respect to the evidence in the other
pending cases. In such eventuality, strict adherence to the rule of denial
of bail on account of pendency of other cases/convictions in all
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probability would land the petitioner in a situation of denial of
concession of bail.
5. DECISION:
In view of the discussions made hereinabove, the
petitioner is hereby directed to be released on regular bail on his
furnishing bail and surety bonds to the satisfaction of the trial
Court/Duty Magistrate, concerned.
In the afore-said terms, the present petition is hereby
allowed.
However, it is made clear that anything stated hereinabove
shall not be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits of the
case.
(SANDEEP MOUDGIL)
JUDGE
02.04.2025
anuradha
Whether speaking/reasoned Yes/No
Whether reportable Yes/No
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