CRLA/435/2025
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Uttarakhand High Court

CRLA/435/2025 on 16 March, 2026

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                               I.A. No.1 of 2025 (Bail Application)
                               In
                               CRLA No.435 of 2025
                               Hon'ble Alok Mahra, J.

Mr. Krishna Sanwal, Advocate, holding brief of Mr. B.S. Adhikari, Advocate for the appellant.

Mr. Deepak Bisht, Deputy Advocate General for the State of Uttarakhand.

2. The instant appeal is preferred against the judgment and order dated 11.04.2025 passed by learned Sessions Judge/Special Judge (N.D.P.S.), Champawat in Special Sessions Trial No.24 of 2019, whereby the appellant has been convicted and sentenced for the offence punishable under Sections 8/20 of N.D.P.S. Act.

3. The appellant seeks bail during pendency of the appeal.

4. Heard learned counsel for the parties on the bail application and perused the record.

5. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the learned trial Court has erred in convicting the appellant in the present case, wherein recovery of 810 grams of Charas is alleged to have been effected from his possession. It is contended that the appellant has been falsely implicated and that the mandatory procedural safeguards prescribed under law were not complied with during the alleged recovery. It is further submitted that no inventory of the alleged contraband was prepared at the spot and neither videography nor photography of the recovery proceedings was conducted. Learned counsel submits that the samples drawn from the alleged contraband were taken in a random manner, despite the contraband being in the form of sticks, and the number of such sticks was not counted. According to him, these lapses render the entire recovery proceedings vitiated in the eyes of law. Learned counsel further submits that the appellant was on bail during trial and has never misused the liberty so granted to him. It is also submitted that the appeal is not likely to be heard in the near future considering the pendency of cases before this Court. Therefore, continued incarceration of the appellant during the pendency of the appeal would cause undue hardship.

6. Having considered, this Court is of the view that it is a case, in which the appellant be enlarged on bail.

7. The bail application is allowed.

8. Let the appellant be released on bail, during the pendency of the appeal on his executing a personal bond and furnishing two reliable sureties, each of the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned.

(Alok Mahra, J.) 16.03.2026 Arpan