Punjab-Haryana High Court
Ved Masih vs State Of Punjab on 11 March, 2025
Author: Sandeep Moudgil
Bench: Sandeep Moudgil
Neutral Citation No:=2025:PHHC:034599
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA
AT CHANDIGARH
244 CRM-M-12641-2025
Date of Decision : March 11, 2025
VED MASIH
.....Petitioner
VERSUS
STATE OF PUNJAB
.....Respondent
CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL
Present : Mr. Rishu Mahajan, Advocate
for the petitioner.
Mr. J.S.Rattu, DAG, Punjab.
SANDEEP MOUDGIL, J. (Oral)
(1) The petitioner has filed petition under Section 483 of BNSS
seeking regular bail in case FIR No.54 dated 6.3.2023 under Sections 21-C,
25 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985
registered at Police Station Special Task Force, District STF Wing.
Facts
2. Facts as emerging in the FIR read as under:-
"Copy of ruqa, "Station House Officer, Police
Station S.T.F., S.A.S. Nagar (Mohall), Jai Hind. Today, I, ASI,
alongwith SI Harpal Singh No. 1913/T.T., SI Sumeet Singh 35
CP/ASR, L/SI Gurwinder Kaur 40/BR, ASI Kashmir Singh No.
1684/CP/ASR, ASI Gurwinder Singh 383 Amritsar Rural, ASI
Manpreet Singh 9/86, ASI Amanjiwanjot Singh 4/93, ASI
Shamsher Singh 3216/ASR, HC Jatinder Singh 3041/ASR., S/Ct
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Mohit Bedi No. 2265/BTL, HC Jagroop Singh 3869/ASR with
Laptop, Printer on official vehicles Mahindra No.PB-65-AX-
5414, driver of which is ASI-Harjit Singh 9/65, and Swift
Dezire PB-65-AU-1184, driver of which is C2 Ajai Kumar
3267/ASR, were present near India Gate Atari Road Amritsar
Police Station, that at about 03:10 PM, special informer came
to me, ASI and gave information that VedMasih @ Ved son of
Satnam Singh, resident of Village BasarkeBhani, District
Amritsar Rural and Ranjit Singh @ Rana son of Jaswant Singh
resident of Village BhaknaKhurd, District Amritsar, together
sell heroin on a large scale and supply it in Amritsar and
nearby areas. Even now accused Ved Masih @ Ved son of
Satnam Singh resident of above is waiting for his customers on
his Hero Deluxe motorcycle No. PB-08-EV-5854 at Gurdwara
Tahli Sahib near Attari Road Amritsar to supply heroin to his
customers. If a rald is conducted right now, he can be
apprehended with a large quantity of heroin. On which 1,
A.S.I., relieved the Informant and informed the fellow
employees about the information and after describing the
outlook of the accused, reached the place mentioned by the
informant with fellow employees. When I reached the place
mentioned by the informer, a haircut young man was seen
standing near a motorcycle branded Hero Deluxe No. PB-08-
EV-5854, as per the description given by the special informer.
He got on the motorcycle, started the motorcycle and started
running away on seeing the police party in uniform. I, ASI,
apprehended him with the help of fellow employees and asked
his name and address. The young man apprehended told his
name as VedMasih @ Ved son of Satnam Singh resident of
Village Basarke Bhani, District Amritsar. On which I,
A.S.I.,got identified myself to the young man apprehended as
per law and told the entire situation to Sh. VavinderKumar,
P.P.S./D.S.P., S.T.F., Border Range, Amritsar through mobile
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phone and requested him to reach on the spot. After about half
an hour the D.S.P. along with his gunmen reached on the spot
on a government vehicle. To whom 1, A.S.I., made aware of the
entire situation again. After being aware of the situation, Sh.
Vavinder Kumar, P.P.S./D.S.P., S.T.F. Border Range, Amritsar
got himself introduced to apprehended young man Ved
Masih@ Ved son of Satnam Singh resident of Village Basarke
Baini, District Amritsar Rural, that I am Vivender Kumar,
P.P.S., posted as D.S.P., S.T.F. Border Range, Amritsar. I am
in uniform and have a name plate. I am a gazetted officer
appointed by the Punjab government. I have received
information that you and your motorcycle have heroin. Due to
which you and your motorcycle need to be searched. But you
have the legal right to get yourself and your motorcycle
searched by a magistrate or any other gazetted officer. For
which I can make an arrangement. On which accused
VedMasih@ Ved son of Satnam Singh resident of Village
Basarke Bhaini, District Amritsar, said that I have full faith in
you. I want to get myself and my motorcycle searched in your
presence. On which a consent memo was prepared separately.
Accused VedMasih@ Ved above said signed the memo in
Punjabi. Before conducting search of accused VedMasih @
Ved son of Satnam Singh resident of Village BasarkeBhaini,
District Amritsar Rural, I, A.S.I. to involve the witness from
public in the police party but nobody was ready to join the
police party due to fear of enmity. Then, as per the instructions
of the D.S.P., I, A.S.I., conducted the searched of apprehended
Ved Prakash @ Ved son of Satnam Singh resident of Village
BasarkeBhani, District Amritsar Rural, then a heavy
transparent polythene envelope was found from the waist belt
of Ved Prakash @ Ved son of Satnam Singh resident of above
said, in which heroin was clearly visible. Later, when the
polythene envelope was opened and checked, heroin was found
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in it. I, A.S.I. weighed the recovered heroin on an electronic
scale along with the polythene envelope. On weighing, the
heroin in the polythene envelope was 500 grams. I, A.S.I., put
it in a separate plastic box and prepared a cloth parcel. I,
A.S.I., sealed the parcel with my seal with initials "HS" and Sh.
Vavinder Kumar, D.S.P., sealed it with his initials "VK".
Sample seal was prepared separately and I, A.S.I., seized the
recovered heroin weighing 500 grams in the parcel plastic box
with seal "HS+VK" as a case propertyalongwith sample seal
in police custody through a separate recovery memo. I, A.S.I.
handed over my seal to ASI-Gurjinder Singh No. 383, Amritsar
Rural, after using it and the D.S.P. kept his seal with himself
after using it. Accused Ved Masih @ Ved son of Satnam Singh
resident of Village BsarkeBhani, District Amritsar Rural, has
committed a cognizable offences under Section 21-C, 25, 29,
61, 85 N.D.P.S. Act by keeping 500 grams of heroin in his
possession."
3. Submissions of the petitioner
Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the petitioner is
a young boy and has been falsely implicated only on the personal vendetta
and his entire life and future is at stake. He further avers that he is not
involved in any other case. He further avers that nothing was recovered from
the petitioner and he has been nominated on the basis of disclosure which has
no credential value.
Stand of the State
(4) Custody certificate dated 10.3.2025 has been filed by the learned
State counsel, which is taken on record. Learned State counsel further submits
that the investigation qua the present petitioner is complete and challan
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against him has been presented on 28.8.2023 and there are 17 witnesses and
out of 17 witnesses, six have been examined and three have been given up.
5. Analysis
Considering the custody period undergone by the petitioner i.e.
2 yeas and he is not involved in any other case of similar nature and the fact
that co-accused, namely, Deepak has been granted the relief of regular bail by
this Court vide CRM-M-31746-2024 and the fact that the conclusion of the
trial is likely to take time and no fruitful purpose would be served by keeping
the petition behind the bars, the petitioner is not involved in any other case,
as is evident from custody certificate in addition to the fact that investigation
is complete, challan stands presented to Court on 28.8.2023, charges have
been framed on 10.10.2023 and total 17 prosecution witnesses are cited,
which is suffice for this Court to infer that the conclusion of trial will take
long time for which the petitioner cannot be detained behind the bars for an
indefinite period. Reliance can be placed upon the judgment of the Apex
Court rendered in "Dataram versus State of Uttar Pradesh and another",
2018(2) R.C.R. (Criminal) 131, wherein it has been held that the grant of bail
is a general rule and putting persons in jail or in prison or in correction home
is an exception. Relevant paras of the said judgment is reproduced as under:-
"2. A fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is
the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a
person is believed to be innocent until found guilty.
However, there are instances in our criminal law where a
reverse onus has been placed on an accused with regard
to some specific offences but that is another matter and
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does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect
of other offences. Yet another important facet of our
criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the
general rule and putting a person in jail or in a prison or
in a correction home (whichever expression one may wish
to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic
principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result
that more and more persons are being incarcerated and
for longer periods. This does not do any good to our
criminal jurisprudence or to our society.
3. There is no doubt that the grant or denial of bail is
entirely the discretion of the judge considering a case but
even so, the exercise of judicial discretion has been
circumscribed by a large number of decisions rendered by
this Court and by every High Court in the country. Yet,
occasionally there is a necessity to introspect whether
denying bail to an accused person is the right thing to do
on the facts and in the circumstances of a case.
4. While so introspecting, among the factors that need to
be considered is whether the accused was arrested during
investigations when that person perhaps has the best
opportunity to tamper with the evidence or influence
witnesses. If the investigating officer does not find it
necessary to arrest an accused person during
investigations, a strong case should be made out for
placing that person in judicial custody after a charge sheet
is filed. Similarly, it is important to ascertain whether the
accused was participating in the investigations to the
satisfaction of the investigating officer and was not
absconding or not appearing when required by the
investigating officer. Surely, if an accused is not hiding
from the investigating officer or is hiding due to some
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genuine and expressed fear of being victimised, it would
be a factor that a judge would need to consider in an
appropriate case. It is also necessary for the judge to
consider whether the accused is a first-time offender or
has been accused of other offences and if so, the nature of
such offences and his or her general conduct. The poverty
or the deemed indigent status of an accused is also an
extremely important factor and even Parliament has taken
notice of it by incorporating an Explanation to section 436
of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. An equally soft
approach to incarceration has been taken by Parliament
by inserting section 436A in the Code of Criminal
Procedure, 1973.
5. To put it shortly, a humane attitude is required to be
adopted by a judge, while dealing with an application for
remanding a suspect or an accused person to police
custody or judicial custody. There are several reasons for
this including maintaining the dignity of an accused
person, howsoever poor that person might be, the
requirements of Article 21 of the Constitution and the fact
that there is enormous overcrowding in prisons, leading to
social and other problems as noticed by this Court in In
Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons, 2017(4) RCR
(Criminal) 416: 2017(5) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.)
408 : (2017) 10 SCC 658
6. The historical background of the provision for bail has
been elaborately and lucidly explained in a recent decision
delivered in Nikesh Tara chand Shah v. Union of India,
2017 (13) SCALE 609 going back to the days of the Magna
Carta. In that decision, reference was made to Gurbaksh
Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 565 in which
it is observed that it was held way back in Nagendra v.
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King-Emperor, AIR 1924 Calcutta 476 that bail is not to
be withheld as a punishment. Reference was also made to
Emperor v. Hutchinson, AIR 1931 Allahabad 356 wherein
it was observed that grant of bail is the rule and refusal is
the exception. The provision for bail is therefore age-old
and the liberal interpretation to the provision for bail is
almost a century old, going back to colonial days.
7. However, we should not be understood to mean that bail
should be granted in every case. The grant or refusal of
bail is entirely within the discretion of the judge hearing
the matter and though that discretion is unfettered, it must
be exercised judiciously and in a humane manner and
compassionately. Also, conditions for the grant of bail
ought not to be so strict as to be incapable of compliance,
thereby making the grant of bail illusory."
Therefore, to elucidate further, this Court is conscious of the
basic and fundamental principle of law that right to speedy trial is a part of
reasonable, fair and just procedure enshrined under Article 21 of the
Constitution of India. This constitutional right cannot be denied to the accused
as is the mandate of the Apex court in "Hussainara Khatoon and ors (IV) v.
Home Secretary, State of Bihar, Patna", (1980) 1 SCC 98. Besides this,
reference can be drawn upon that pre-conviction period of the under-trials
should be as short as possible keeping in view the nature of accusation and
the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting
evidence, reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or
apprehension of threat to the complainant.
5. DECISION:
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In view of the discussions made hereinabove, the petitioner is
hereby directed to be released on regular bail on him furnishing bail and surety
bonds to the satisfaction of the trial Court/Duty Magistrate, concerned.
In the afore-said terms, the present petition is hereby allowed.
However, it is made clear that anything stated hereinabove shall
not be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits of the case.
(SANDEEP MOUDGIL)
March 11, 2025 JUDGE
ajay-1
Whether speaking/reasoned. : Yes/No
Whether Reportable. : Yes/No
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