Judgment Intelligence
Bail Granted- Court
- Rajasthan High Court
- Date of Decision
- 1 February 2022
- Bench
- Justice Madan Gopal Vyas
- Relevant Acts & Sections
- Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 — Section 167(2); Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 — Section 36A(4)
Revision allowed; the Bhadra order of 30.09.2021 set aside insofar as it concerns the petitioner, who, unless needed in another case, is to be released on bail at once on his own Rs 1 lakh bond with two Rs 50,000 sureties, to attend each hearing and whenever called (paras 15-16).
Source Rajasthan High Court, hcraj.nic.in — order dated 01.02.2022
Key holdings
- Seizures from the four accused's own pockets could not be pooled into a joint 760 grams of heroin (paras 6, 9).
- The petitioner's 200 grams was below the 250-gram commercial quantity for heroin, so a 60-day charge-sheet limit applied (paras 5, 10).
- Seventy-three days had passed since his arrest on 19.07.2021, with no charge-sheet, when the trial court ruled (para 10).
- His application, made before the charge-sheet, kept its force once the charge-sheet was filed (paras 11-13).
- The default-bail proviso to Section 167(2) CrPC is available in NDPS prosecutions (para 14).
Case explainer by NyayVidhan: an account of this judgment and the law it laid down, not the court's text. The judgment itself is the authoritative version.
Brief Facts
Court's Findings
Legal Principle
NyayVidhan's view · Practice note
Why It Matters
Default bail here was decided on what the FIR attributed to one accused, not on the total seized from all four. The trial court had added up four pocket seizures into a joint 760 grams of heroin (paras 1, 6); the High Court counted the petitioner's own 200 grams and applied the 60-day limit (paras 9-10). His application, filed before the charge-sheet, survived it (paras 12-13). Two co-accused challenged the same trial-court order in Virendra Singh, decided two weeks later. On separate recoveries, see also Anita Devi (totals cannot be read against one accused) and Nasir (another person's recovery cannot be clubbed).
Editorial comment by the NyayVidhan Editorial Desk. It is not part of the Court's judgment and is not legal advice.
Precedents Relied Upon
- Roteen Barman v. State of Rajasthan S.B. Criminal Misc. Second Bail Application No. 2312/2012, Rajasthan High Court, decided 09.10.2012
A co-ordinate Bench ruling that contraband recovered from separate bags carried by each accused is not clubbed to reach commercial quantity merely because they are accused in one FIR, and that below commercial quantity the charge-sheet period under Section 167(2) CrPC is 60 days. Produced by the petitioner (para 3); its passages are quoted and the Court takes his recovery as 200 grams in line with it (paras 6-9).
- Uday Mohanlal Acharya v. State of Maharashtra AIR 2001 SC 1910
An accused who applies for default bail under Section 167(2) before the charge-sheet and offers bail has availed of the indefeasible right; if the application is wrongly rejected and the charge-sheet is filed while he seeks bail before a higher forum, the right is not extinguished. Applied to the petitioner's pre-charge-sheet application (paras 12-13).
- Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh AIR 1999 SC 1403
The proviso to Section 167(2) CrPC benefits an accused charged under the NDPS Act as well; its para 7, which quotes Union of India v. Thamisharasi, is set out (para 14).
