Lalman vs State Of H.P

Anoop Chitkara, J

The petitioner, incarcerating upon his arrest has come up before this Court under Section 439 CrPC, for possessing commercial quantity of charas,

has come up before this Court under Section 439 of CrPC, seeking bail.

Earlier, the petitioner had filed Cr.MP(M) No.818 of 2019, under Section 439 CrPC before this Court, which vide order 26.06.2019, was dismissed.

Though, the bail application as well as status report are silent about criminal history of the petitioner, but learned counsel for the petitioner states that

the petitioner has no criminal history.

Briefly, the allegations against the petitioner are that on 31.01.2018, Special Investigating Unit of CID, Shimla was patrolling to detect smuggling and

criminal activities. At 4:30 p.m., they received a secret information that one Lalman of Bali Chowki, who is proprietor of Radhika General Store,

which is a Kariyana shop at Takoli, indulges in sale of illicit substances. Police officials associated independent witnesses, reached the said shop and

search of shop led to recovery of a carton, from which police recovered charas, which when weighed on electronic scale, it measured 1.128 Kg.

After that, the investigator conducted procedural requirements of NDPS act and Cr.P.C and arrested the accused.

Ld. Counsel for the petitioner contends that the petitioner is a first offender and incarceration before the proof of guilt would cause grave injustice

to the petitioner and family.

On the contrary, the State contends that the Police have collected sufficient evidence against the bail petitioner and the co-accused. Another

argument on behalf of the State is that the crime is heinous, the accused is a risk to law-abiding people, and bail might send a wrong message to

society.

When police searched the shop, at that time, accused himself was sitting there. Once he owned the shop, the burden was upon him to explain the

presence of contraband. This is the requirement of section 37 of the Act for the purpose of bail, but the petitioner has failed to discharge same.

Furthermore, the trial is at the advance stage.

Ld. Counsel for the petitioner referred to certain statements and memos from the police report, prepared under section 173(2) CrPC, copies of

which the accused had duly received in compliance to S. 207 CrPC. However, the documents which the Ld. Counsel referred were neither filed with

the petition, nor its copies supplied to the Court and the State. Thus, the Court cannot base any finding on a document in the Counsel's brief and not on

Court's file.

Counsel for the petitioner has also made several other arguments. Still, as this Court is not inclined to grant bail, on the reasons mentioned above,

discussion of the same will be an exercise in futility. Any detailed analysis of the evidence may prejudice the case of the prosecution or the accused.

Given above, in the facts and circumstances peculiar to this case, at this stage, the petitioner fails to make out a case for bail. The petition is

dismissed with liberty to file a new bail application.

Any observation made hereinabove is neither an expression of opinion on the merits of the case, nor shall the trial Court advert to these comments.

The petition is dismissed, so also the pending miscellaneous application(s), if any. .