The Supreme Court has held that an accused should not be granted bail in drug-related offences that entail a minimum 10-year punishment as in such cases “negation of bail is the rule and its grant an exception”.

A bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma passed the verdict while quashing the bail granted to an accused, Kashif, by Delhi High Court on the ground that the investigating agency, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), did not comply with the statutory norms relating to seizure and sampling of the seized contraband.

“There has been a consistent and persistent view of this court that in the NDPS (Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) cases, where the offence is punishable with a minimum sentence of 10 years, the accused shall generally be not released on bail. Negation of bail is the rule and its grant is an exception.

“While considering the bail application, the court has to bear in mind the provisions of Section 37 of the NDPS Act, which are mandatory in nature. The recording of the finding as mandated in Section 37 is a sine qua non (absolutely necessary) for granting bail to the accused involved in the offences under the said Act,” Justice Trivedi, who authored the judgment, said.

The court passed the verdict while allowing an appeal filed by the NCB challenging the bail granted to Kashif on technical grounds. “Apart from the granting opportunity of hearing to the public prosecutor, the other two conditions i.e., (i) the satisfaction of the court that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the alleged offence and that (ii) he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail, are the cumulative and not alternative conditions.

“The length of the period of his (accused) custody or the fact that the chargesheet has been filed and the trial has commenced are by themselves not considerations that can be treated as persuasive grounds for granting relief to the respondent under Section 37 of the NDPS Act,” the bench said.