Make random calls to foreigner in drugs case, Punjab and Haryana High Court tells SHO

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 14

In an out-of-the-ordinary order, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked a Station House Officer to make random calls to a foreign national allegedly involved in a drugs case. The officer was also asked to keep tabs on his whereabouts.

The direction came as the High Court made it clear that nationality was not a factor to be taken into consideration while deciding bail pleas. Stringent conditions could be imposed, but bail could not be denied on the ground that the accused was a foreign national.

The directions by Justice Suvir Sehgal came after the state counsel opposed a bail plea on the ground that the accused was a foreign national. The state counsel, upon instructions from a police official, submitted that the petitioner was a citizen of Nigeria. “It has been noticed that when foreign nationals are released on bail, they invariably abscond or go underground, which hampers the trial”.

The state counsel added that the drugs recovered from the petitioner fell within the ambit of commercial quantity and the bar contained in Section 37 of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was attracted.

The accused was seeking regular bail in an FIR registered on March 29, 2017, under the provisions of the NDPS Act at the Zirakpur police station in Mohali. The prosecution had claimed that a person was apprehended by the police with 18 gm of intoxicating powder. During investigation, he named the petitioner as the person from whom he had purchased the contraband. On the basis of his statement, the police arrested the petitioner from New Delhi in March 2017 and allegedly recovered 190 gm of cocaine and 300 gm of heroin from him.

Justice Sehgal asserted that the Supreme Court, in the case of “Lachhman Dass versus Resham Chand Kaler and another”, had ruled that the law under Section 439 of the CrPC on regular bail was very clear. In the eyes of the law, every accused was the same irrespective of nationality.

Granting bail to the accused, Justice Sehgal observed that his period of incarceration was by now more than four years and the trial was not likely to come to an end in the near future. For allaying the state counsel’s apprehensions, Justice Sehgal asked the accused to report to the police station concerned twice a month. He was also asked to give his residential address, along with his proof of actual stay, and mobile number to the SHO of the police station concerned for making random calls. The petitioner was also asked to surrender his passport and remain present before the trial court on each and every date of hearing.