“Territory of grant of anticipatory bail in a case registered under NDPS Act is nothing, but a very serious matter and unheard of,” the Supreme Court said in a conference on September 19, 2024.
One such bench comprising of Justice B.R. Gavai , Justices Aravind Kumar , K.V. Viswanathan was examining a bail application appealed by one of the accused because the case was circumscribing the provisions of the NDPS Act in the state of West Bengal.
The Bench ordered the State of West Bengal to find out whether the State of West Bengal intends to file Suo Moto application for cancellation of anticipatory bail granted to four accused in the above case.
Should the NDPS Act be amended?
It issued notice to the State of West Bengal with respect to the accused’s bail application and fixed it for hearing after four weeks. The petitioners counsel submitted before the Bench that in the case of six accused persons, four of them were granted regular fifty and six were arrested out of which one was on regular bail.
“Anticipatory bail is usually included in NDPS matter?” the Bench queried. “In NDPS matter, anticipatory bail is unheard of,” it said. “We can issue notice (on the plea) and direct the State to file an application for cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted to the co-accused,” the Court stated.
“Grant of anticipatory bail in a NDPS matter comes with lot of gravity. We, therefore, cause the State to say whether it wants to accompany the co-accused in the application to cancel the anticipatory bail that has been granted by the Court,” the aggrieved party said.
This is in the application that the accused made before the Calcutta High Court in the month of July this year when the court issued an order which dismissed his application for regular bail in the case filed in October 2023. “The samples which were sent to FSL had been confirmed to be positive for the materials that were seized from the petitioner and so are contraband,” so stated the High Court in its order.
“Considering the fact that there is commercial quantity of ‘ganja’ involved and also the restrictions specified in Section 37 of the NDPS Act, we are not inclined to grant bail to the petitioner at this stage,” it said.
