2020 (12) TMI 1397

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....rse of investigation, the police laid a naka at T. Chowk, Banihal and signalled the petitioner to stop. Upon search of the petitioner, he was found in possession of polythene bag containing 245 gms of Herion (Chitta). The petitioner/accused was arrested and after investigation of the case, offences under Sections 8/21/22 NDPS Act were found established against them. Accordingly, a charge-sheet against the petitioner/accused was laid before the trial Court on 17.09.2019. 2. It appears that the petitioner had filed an application for grant of bail in his favour in the aforesaid FIR before the Court of learned Principal Sessions Judge, Ramban(hereinafter referred to the 'trial Court'), but the same was rejected by the trial Court vi....

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..... I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. 5. As already noted, in the instant case, the learned trial Court, has rejected the bail application of the petitioner. The question that arises for consideration is whether or not successive bail applications will lie before this Court. The law on this issue is very clear that if an earlier application was rejected by an inferior court, the superior court can always entertain the successive bail application. In this behalf, I am supported by the ratio laid down by the Supreme Court in the case titled Gurcharan Singh & Ors. vs. State (Delhi Administration), AIR 1978 SC 179 which has been followed by the Bombay High Court in the case of Devi Das Raghu Nath Naik v. Stat....

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....of that particular case. A Coordinate Bench of this Court, while discussing the principles to be followed in a case where intermediary quantity of contraband was recovered from the accused, has, in the case of Mehraj-ud-Din Nadroo and others Vs. State of J&K (BA No. 74/2018 decided on 07.07.2018), observed as under: "The settled position of law as evolved by the Supreme Court in a catena of judicial dictums on the subject governing the grant of bail is that there is no strait jacket formula or settled rules for the use of discretion but at the time of deciding the question of "bail or jail" in non-bailable offences. Court has to utilize its judicial discretion, not only that as per the settled law, the discretion to grant bail in c....

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....vention being the object of a refusal of bail, one must not lose sight of the fact that any imprisonment before conviction has a substantial punitive content and it would be improper for any Court to refuse bail as a mark of disapproval of former conduct whether the accused has been convicted for it or not or to refuse bail to an unconvicted person for the purpose of giving him a taste of imprisonment as a lesson". 9. In the light of the afore-quoted principles, let us now advert to the facts of the instant case. As already noted, the quantity of contraband allegedly recovered from the accused does not fall within the parameters of 'commercial quantity' and in view of the same is intermediary one. The rigor of Section 37 of the N....