STATE BY (NCB) BENGALURU versus PALLULABID AHMAD ARIMUTTA & ANR.

Citation: [2022] 1 S.C.R. 422 · Decided: 10-01-2022 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: N.V. RAMANA · Disposal: Disposed off
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[2022] 1 S.C.R.
[2022] 1 S.C.R. 422
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STATE BY (NCB) BENGALURU
v.
PALLULABID AHMAD ARIMUTTA & ANR.
(Petition for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No. 242 of 2022)
JANUARY 10, 2022
[N. V. RAMANA, CJI, SURYA KANT AND
HIMA KOHLI, JJ.]
Bail – Cancellation of – Allegations of drug trafficking –
Held: A confessional statement recorded u/s.67 of the NDPS Act
will remain inadmissible in trial of an offence under the NDPS Act
– Arrests made by petitioner-NCB, on basis of confession/ voluntary
statements of respondents-accused or the co-accused u/s.67, cannot
form the basis for overturning the impugned orders releasing them
on bail – Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 –
s.67.
Bail – Cancellation of – Allegations of drug trafficking –
Held: On facts, the only reason that appears to have weighed with
the High Court for releasing A-2 on bail is that his case stands on
the same footing as A-1, A-3 and A-4 who had been enlarged on
bail – A-2 however cannot seek parity with the aforesaid co-accused
and no such benefit could have been extended to him in view of
s.37 of the NDPS Act when he was found to be in conscious
possession of commercial quantity of psychotropic substances, as
contemplated under the NDPS Act – Bail granted to A-2 cancelled
– Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 – s.37.
EXTRAORDINARY APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Petition
for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No. 242 of 2022.
From the Judgment and Order dated 16.09.2019 of the High Court
of Karnataka at Bengaluru in Criminal Petition No.4462 of 2019.
With
Petition for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) Nos. 1569, 1454, 1465,
2080 and 1773-74 of 2021.
K. M. Nataraj, S. V. Raju, ASGs, B. K. Satija, Ms. Rekha Pandey,
Rajat Nair, O. P. Shukla, Arvind Kumar Sharma, B. V. Balaram Das,
Ms. Sairica Raju, Annam Venkatesh, Rahul Mishra, Arvind Kumar
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Sharma, Ms. Seema Bengani, Ms. Swarupama Chaturvedi, Ms. Vimla
Sinha, Vatsal Joshi, Advs. for the Petitioner.
Rajesh Mahale, P. V. Dinesh, Ashwini Kumar Singh, Bineesh K.,
Advs. for the Respondents.
The Order of the Court was passed by
HIMA KOHLI J.
Delay condoned in SLP (Crl.) … Diary No. 22702 of 2020.
1. As the facts of the present petitions are intertwined, having
arisen from two connected cases registered as NCB Case FN No. 48/
01/03/2019/BZU and NCB Case FN No. 48/01/07/2019/BZU, it is
proposed to dispose them by a common order. The petitioner-Narcotic
Control Bureau, Bengaluru Zonal Unit1, is aggrieved by an order dated
16th September, 2019 passed in Criminal Leave Petition No. 4462/2019
(subject matter of SLP(Crl.) Diary No. 22702/2020), order dated 14th
January, 2020 passed in Criminal Leave Petition No. 8603/2019 (subject
matter of SLP (Crl.) No. 1454/2021), order dated 16th January, 2020
passed in Criminal Petition No. 7861/2019 (subject matter of SLP (Crl.)
No. 1465/2021), order dated 19th December, 2019 passed in Criminal
Petition No. 7624/2019 c/w Criminal Petition No. 6609/2019 (subject
matter of SLP (Crl.) Nos. 1773-1774/2021), order dated 08th January,
2020 passed in Criminal Petition No. 7714/2019 (subject matter of SLP
(Crl.) No. 1569/2021) and order dated 20th January, 2020 passed in
Criminal Petition No. 7897/2019 (subject matter of SLP (Crl.) No. 2080/
2021). By the aforesaid orders, the High Court of Karnataka has released
the respondents on bail for the offences punishable under Sections 8(c),
8A read with Sections 20(b), 21, 22, 27A, 27B, 28 and 29 of the Narcotic
Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 19852, as the case may be.
2. The facts leading to registering of the aforesaid cases against
the respondents are that on 22nd March, 2019, the petitioner-NCB had
received information that two persons i.e., Nausheer Mohammed [A-1]
and Noushad Mannakkamvalli [A-2] were going to carry drugs and travel
to Doha by Oman Airways from Bengaluru International Airport.
Immediately on receiving such information, a team of NCB officers
arrived at the airport and on searching the luggage of A-1 and A-2,
1 In short ‘NCB’
2 In short ‘NDPS Act’
STATE BY (NCB) BENGALURU v. PALLULABID AHMAD ARIMUTTA
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[2022] 1 S.C.R.
seized 4.525 Kgs of Hashish, 965 Grams of Amphetamine and 30 Grams
of Cocaine. Both the respondents in SLP(Crl) @ Diary No. 22702/2020
i.e. Pallulabid Ahamad Arimutta and Mohammed Majid Saleem were
arraigned as Accused Nos. 3 and 4 in NCB Case FN No. 48/01/03/
2019/BZU3 and arrested for t
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