Oral Grounds in Template Arrest Memo Not Enough: Supreme Court Grants Bail to Amritsar Doctors in NDPS Case

The appellants run the Corporate Hospital and its pharmacy, Corporate Medicos, at Amritsar (paras 3-4, 8). They say the manufacturer, M/s. Ballista Pharmaceuticals, wrongly shipped 2000 Tramadol tablets instead of the 200 ordered, and that the box stayed sealed while they sought return of the excess (paras 5-6). After the NCB recovered 31,900 tablets from the manufacturer on 1 May 2025, it seized the sealed consignment from the pharmacy (paras 6-7). Both doctors were summoned under Section 67 of the NDPS Act, arrested and remanded on 3 May 2025 (para 8). The Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected their bail applications, which had specifically raised non-supply of the grounds of arrest (paras 9-10).

The Court held it is no longer res integra that supplying the grounds of arrest in writing, before the arrest or in exceptional cases immediately after, is mandated by Article 22(1) read with Article 21 (para 20). Under Mihir Rajesh Shah, any deviation renders the arrest illegal and entitles the accused to release forthwith (para 20). The Additional Solicitor General relied on the arrest memo, the Section 57 compliance report and the hospital's licence excluding Tramadol (paras 15-18). The Court extracted the memo, which recorded only that the officer had "explained the ground of arrest to him/her before arrest" (para 21). It found the memo was prepared in a template format and itself showed that the grounds had been conveyed orally (para 22). In that situation, the arresting officer had to supply the grounds of arrest in writing two hours before producing the accused before the Magistrate, as Mihir Rajesh Shah requires, and this had apparently not been done (para 22). The appellants were therefore given the benefit of that ratio and ordered to be released on bail (para 23).