Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

The Rajasthan High Court quashed a 1990 conviction for 8.5 kg of opium, holding that police who set out to search a shop and house needed a warrant or recorded grounds under Section 42 of the NDPS Act, even though the accused was caught on the road outside. The Court found the recovery proved and Section 50 complied with, but the Section 42 breach made the search void (paras 32, 48, 53-61).

The Rajasthan High Court set aside the confiscation of a truck seized with Khair wood under the Rajasthan Forest Act, 1953. Confiscation proceedings run parallel to the trial and need not await a conviction, it held, but Section 52(5) bars confiscating a vehicle used without the owner's knowledge or connivance. The Authorised Officer had recorded exactly that finding and still confiscated the truck because forest offences were rising, an order the Court called void (paras 22, 24, 28-30).

The Rajasthan High Court quashed a second Anti Corruption Bureau FIR against a Biofuel Authority CEO, registered six days after a trap case against him, alleging another bribe. Because Section 219 CrPC allowed the two like offences, committed within twelve months, to be tried together, and both FIRs alleged the same conspiracy, the second FIR was an abuse of process (paras 15-16). Without Section 17A approval it could not be investigated either (para 18).

The Rajasthan High Court allowed an accused husband, on trial under Sections 304-B and 498-A IPC, to undergo a voluntary narco-analysis test at the defence stage. Section 233 CrPC gives an accused who is not acquitted under Section 232 an indefeasible right to lead defence evidence, and refusing a scientific technique that Selvi permits on a voluntary basis would deprive him of his right to defend himself (paras 14-16). The trial court's refusal was set aside (para 17).

A three-Judge Bench rejected the constitutional challenges to the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002, including Sections 5, 8(4), 17, 18, 19, 24, 45, 50 and 63 (para 187). The amended twin bail conditions in Section 45 are valid and apply even to anticipatory bail, but Section 436A CrPC remains available (paras 141, 149, 187). Enforcement Directorate officers are not police officers, Section 50 statements are not hit by Article 20(3), and an ECIR is not an FIR (paras 172, 179).

The Supreme Court set aside the Delhi High Court's grant of post-arrest bail to an accused in an NDPS case in which large quantities of psychotropic tablets were seized (paras 2, 5, 19). Section 67 confessions had to be kept aside after Tofan Singh, but the respondent's disclosures leading to a large recovery and call records linking the accused should have dissuaded the High Court (paras 16-17). Custody length or a filed charge-sheet is not by itself a ground for bail under Section 37 (para 18).

The Rajasthan High Court quashed a Special Judge's order releasing a vehicle seized by the Narcotics Control Bureau, holding that where the CrPC is inconsistent with the NDPS Act, Section 51 makes the NDPS Act prevail. The NCB may dispose of the vehicle under Section 52A, an interim measure that leaves the owner's rights to be decided in confiscation proceedings under Sections 60 to 63 (paras 7-10).

The Supreme Court dismissed West Bengal's appeal against bail granted to Rakesh Singh, accused under Section 27A of the NDPS Act of financing 76 grams of cocaine and having it planted in a car to frame two people out of a personal grudge. The charge-sheet's story contradicted the police complaint that the moving car was stopped and its occupants pointed out the drugs, giving reasonable grounds to doubt his complicity (paras 13-19).

Building on its 2021 orders classifying offences into four categories, the Supreme Court issued nationwide bail directions: courts must check compliance with Sections 41 and 41A CrPC, and non-compliance entitles the accused to bail (paras 23, 73); Section 436A applies to special Acts, so the rigour of Section 37 of the NDPS Act "would not come in the way" (para 64); and bail applications should be decided within two weeks (para 73). It also asked the Government of India to consider a Bail Act (paras 72-73).

The Rajasthan High Court held that an order granting interim maintenance in a pending application under Section 125 CrPC is an interlocutory order, so a criminal revision against it is barred by Section 397(2) CrPC and, where a Family Court passed it, by Section 19 of the Family Courts Act. Bound by its Division Bench ruling in Anu v. Ratan Lal Sharma, it dismissed cross revisions by a husband and by his wife and daughter as not maintainable (paras 21-24).

The Supreme Court set aside a Rajasthan High Court order granting regular bail to a man accused of raping his niece, holding that the order was "cryptic, and does not suggest any application of mind" (para 22). It said the High Court ignored the gravity of the offence, his nearly twenty pending cases and his influence as an elder relative (para 21), and directed him to surrender within a week (para 24).

The Rajasthan High Court dismissed a revision seeking default bail under Section 167(2) CrPC. The accused was first held for a day under Section 363 IPC and bailed; after further offences, including offences under the POCSO Act, were added, he was re-arrested on 27.10.2021 and charge-sheeted on 24.01.2022. The Court held that the 90 days run from when investigation of the added offences began, not from the FIR, and that an application filed after the charge-sheet is not maintainable (paras 17-27).