Probe underway? No reason to reject bail: NDPS court

A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) court in one of its recent orders held that 'investigation is in progress' cannot be held as grounds to reject the bail application of any accused. 

The court, presided over by judge Govind Sanap, also held that going through the circumstances of the particular case being heard, the detention of the four accused men was not at all warranted.

Four Odisha natives, who had moved to Mumbai and were living in Mulund to make a living, were arrested by the Mulund police in 2018 for jointly possessing 32 kilogram of ganja, which qualifies as commercial quantity.

However, the four persons did not each possess commercial quantity. Thus they had applied for bail in the matter.

The prosecution while opposing the bail said that all four were arrested from the spot but with non-commercial quantity on each of their person. The investigation is not yet complete.

The court held, "At this stage, there is no prima facie material placed on record to connect the accused with ganja possessed by each one of the accused. It is crystal clear that quantity of Ganja received from each of the accused was a non-commercial quantity... The investigation is still in process. After filing of the charge sheet, completion of the trial would also take its own time. Accused cannot be denied bail on the grounds that the investigation is in progress."

THE ACCUSED

The Mulund police had arrested Maheshwar Sahoo, Chinmay Sahani, Batkrushna Swai and Divyahoti Bark for possessing ganja.