2025:HHC:25614 IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA Cr. MP (M) No. 1593 of 2025 Reserved on: 28.7.2025 Date of Decision: 01.8.2025. Ishu ...Petitioner Versus State of Himachal Pradesh ...Respondent Coram Hon’ble Mr Justice Rakesh Kainthla, Judge. Whether approved for reporting?1 For the Petitioner : Mr. Yashveer Singh Rathore, Advocate. For the Respondent/State : Mr. Prashant Sen, Deputy Advocate General. Rakesh Kainthla, Judge The petitioner has filed the present petition for seeking regular bail. It has been asserted that the petitioner was arrested on 20.07.2023 vide FIR No. 222 of 2023, dated 20.7.2023, registered for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 20 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (in short ‘the ND&PS Act’), at Police Station, Kullu, District Kullu, H.P. The allegations against 1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes. 2 2025:HHC:25614 the petitioner are absurd, baseless and imaginary. As per the prosecution, 1.168 kgs. of charas was recovered from the bag being carried by the co-accused. The petitioner has nothing to do with the recovery of the charas. No grounds of arrest were communicated to the petitioner while arresting him, which is a violation of the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Vihaan Kumar Vs. State of Haryana (2025): INSC:162. The co- accused played an active role. He ran away from the spot after seeing the police, and he has been released on bail by this Court. There is no bank transaction to show the involvement of the petitioner. Therefore, it was prayed that the present petition be allowed and the petitioner be released on bail. 2. The petition is opposed by filing a status report asserting that the police party was on patrolling duty. The police intercepted a vehicle. One person ran away. The petitioner was found in the vehicle, who revealed his name as Ishu. He also disclosed the name of the driver as Parmar Thakur @ Pawan. The police checked the bag lying between the petitioner’s legs and found 1.168 kg of charas in it. The police arrested him, seized the vehicle and conducted the investigation. The petitioner revealed on inquiry that he and the driver went to Jari, 3 2025:HHC:25614 where someone handed over Charas to Pawan. The police intercepted the vehicle, and Pawan ran away. The police apprehended Pawan, who revealed during interrogation that he had facilitated the sale of charas to the petitioner. After completion of the investigation, the police prepared the challan and presented it before the Court. The prosecution has cited 23 witnesses out of whom 14 witnesses have been examined, and the matter is now listed for recording the statements of prosecution witnesses on 22.9.2025 and 23.9.2025, respectively. Hence, the status report. 3. I have heard Mr. Yashveer Singh Rathore, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Prashant Sen, learned Deputy Advocate General, for the respondent-State. 4. Mr. Yashveer Singh Rathore, learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner is innocent and was falsely implicated. The co-accused has already been released on bail, and the petitioner is entitled to bail on the principle of parity. The grounds of arrest were not communicated to the petitioner, and the petitioner is entitled to bail on this ground as well. He relied upon the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court 4 2025:HHC:25614 in Kasireddy Upender Reddy Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh and others 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1228 in support of his submission. 5. Mr. Prashant Sen, learned Deputy Advocate General, for the respondent-State, submitted that the applicability of the judgment of Vihaan Kumar (supra) to the offences punishable in various provisions of the ND&PS Act is pending consideration before the Hon’ble Supreme Court; therefore, this Court should not decide this question. The petitioner had filed the bail petition earlier, which was dismissed by this Court, and there is no change in the circumstances. Hence, he prayed that the present petition be dismissed. 6. I have given considerable thought to the submissions made at the bar and have gone through the records carefully. 7. The parameters for granting bail were considered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Bhagwan Singh v. Dilip Kumar @ Deepu @ Depak, 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1059, wherein it was observed as under: - “12. The grant of bail is a discretionary relief, which necessarily means that such discretion would have to be exercised in a judicious manner and not as a matter of course. The grant of bail is dependent upon contextual facts of the matter being dealt with by the Court and may 5 2025:HHC:25614 vary from case to case. There cannot be any exhaustive parameters set out for considering the application for a grant of bail. However, it can be noted that; (a) While granting bail, the court has to keep in mind factors such as the nature of accusations, severity of the punishment, if the accusations entail a conviction and the nature of evidence in support of the accusations; (b) reasonable apprehensions of the witnesses being tampered with or the apprehension of there being a threat for the complainant should also weigh with the Court in the matter of granting bail. (c) While it is not accepted to have the entire evidence establishing the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, there ought to be always a prima facie satisfaction of the Court in support of the charge. (d) Frivolity of prosecution should always be considered and it is only the element of genuineness that shall have to be considered in the matter of grant of bail and in the event of there being some doubt as to the genuineness of the prosecution, in the normal course of events, the accused is entitled to have an order of bail. 13. We may also profitably refer to a decision of this Court in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan @ Pappu Yadav (2004) 7 SCC 528, where the parameters to be taken into consideration for the grant of bail by the Courts have been explained in the following words: “11. The law in regard to the grant or refusal of bail is very well settled. The court granting bail should exercise its discretion in a judicious manner and not as a matter of course. Though at the stage of granting bail, a detailed examination of evidence and elaborate documentation of the merit of the case need not be undertaken, there is a need to indicate in such orders reasons for prima facie 6 2025:HHC:25614 concluding why bail was being granted, particularly where the accused is charged of having committed a serious offence. Any order devoid of such reasons would suffer from non-application of mind. It is also necessary for the court granting bail to consider, among other circumstances, the following factors also before granting bail; they are: (a) The nature of the accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction, and the nature of supporting evidence. (b) Reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or apprehension of a threat to the complainant. (c) Prima facie satisfaction of the court in support of the charge. (See Ram Govind Upadhyay v. Sudarshan Singh [(2002) 3 SCC 598: 2002 SCC (Cri) 688] and Puran v. Rambilas [(2001) 6 SCC 338: 2001 SCC (Cri) 1124].)” 8. A similar view was taken in State of Haryana vs Dharamraj 2023 SCC Online 1085, wherein it was observed: 7. A foray, albeit brief, into relevant precedents is warranted. This Court considered the factors to guide the grant of bail in Ram Govind Upadhyay v. Sudarshan Singh, (2002) 3 SCC 598 and Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan, (2004) 7 SCC 528. In Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee, (2010) 14 SCC 496, the relevant principles were restated thus: ‘9. … It is trite that this Court does not, normally, interfere with an order passed by the High Court granting or rejecting bail to the accused. However, it is equally incumbent upon the High Court to exercise its discretion judiciously, cautiously and strictly in compliance with the basic principles laid down in a plethora of decisions of this Court on the point. It is well settled that, among other 7 2025:HHC:25614 circumstances, the factors to be borne in mind while considering an application for bail are: (i) whether there is any prima facie or reasonable ground to believe that the accused had committed the offence; (ii) nature and gravity of the accusation; (iii) severity of the punishment in the event of conviction; (iv) danger of the accused absconding or fleeing, if released on bail; (v) character, behaviour, means, position and standing of the accused; (vi) likelihood of the offence being repeated; (vii) reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being influenced; and (viii) danger, of course, of justice being thwarted by the grant of bail.’ 9. It is undisputed that the petitioner had earlier filed a bail petition, bearing Cr.MP(M) No. 1594 of 2024, which was dismissed on 14.8.2024. It was held in State of Maharashtra Vs. Captain Buddhikota Subha Rao (1989) Suppl. 2 SCC 605, that once a bail application has been dismissed, a subsequent bail application can only be considered if there is a change of circumstances. It was observed: “Once that application was rejected, there was no question of granting a similar prayer. That is virtually overruling the earlier decision without there being a change in the fact situation. And when we speak of change, we mean a substantial one, which has a direct 8 2025:HHC:25614 impact on the earlier decision and not merely cosmetic changes, which are of little or no consequence. Between the two orders, there was a gap of only two days, and it is nobody's case that during these two days, drastic changes had taken place, necessitating the release of the respondent on bail. Judicial discipline, propriety and comity demanded that the impugned order should not have been passed, reversing all earlier orders, including the one rendered by Puranik, J., only a couple of days before, in the absence of any substantial change in the fact situation. In such cases, it is necessary to act with restraint and circumspection so that the process of the Court is not abused by a litigant and an impression does not gain ground that the litigant has either successfully avoided one judge or selected another to secure an order which had hitherto eluded him. 10. Similarly, it was held in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan @ Pappu Yadav (2004) 7 SCC 528, that where an earlier bail application has been rejected, the Court has to consider the rejection of the earlier bail application and then consider why the subsequent bail application should be allowed. It was held. “11. In regard to cases where earlier bail applications have been rejected there is a further onus on the court to consider the subsequent application for grant of bail by noticing the grounds on which earlier bail applications have been rejected and after such consideration, if the court is of the opinion that bail has to be granted then the said court will have to give specific reasons why in spite of such earlier rejection the subsequent bail application should be granted.” 11. It was specifically held by this Court while dismissing the earlier bail petition that the petitioner was found in the 9 2025:HHC:25614 vehicle from which the bag was recovered; therefore, the rigours of Section 37 of ND&PS apply to the present case. 12. These findings cannot be disturbed in the subsequent bail petition, and the submission that the petitioner was not found in possession of the contraband and he was falsely implicated cannot be adjudicated in the present petition. 13. It was submitted that the grounds of arrest were not communicated to the petitioner. This is not acceptable. The information of arrest (Annexure P-2) shows that the petitioner was told that he was found in possession of 1.168 kgs. of cannabis at Bangyanda, which is a non-bailable offence and can be punished with imprisonment from 10 years to 20 years. Therefore, he was being arrested on 20.7.2023 at 8.15 PM. This was duly signed by the witness as well as the petitioner. Thus, the information of arrest conveys the prohibited act (possession of 1.168 kgs. of charas), nature of the offence (non-bailable) and the reason for arrest (police could not take bail. It was laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Kasireddy Upender Reddy (supra) that a person who is arrested without a warrant must be 10 2025:HHC:25614 told of the act done by him, constituting the commission of the offence and for which he would be tried. It was observed:- “36. If a person is arrested on a warrant, the grounds for reasons for the arrest are the warrant itself; if the warrant is read over to him, that is sufficient compliance with the requirement that he should be informed of the grounds for his arrest. If he is arrested without a warrant, he must be told why he has been arrested. If he is arrested for committing an offence, he must be told that he has committed a certain offence for which he would be placed on trial. In order to inform him that he has committed a certain offence, he must be told of the acts done by him which amount to the offence. He must be informed of the precise acts done by him for which he would be tried; informing him merely of the law applicable to such acts would not be enough. (See: Vimal Kishore Mehrotra (supra) 14. Therefore, the memo of arrest complied with the requirements laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. 15. It was submitted that the police were supposed to inform the petitioner that he was travelling in the vehicle bearing registration No. T-1222-HP-7866L, wherein a bag was found that contained contraband. This submission is not acceptable. As per the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Kasireddy Upender Reddy (supra), only the prohibited act constituting the offence is to be communicated. In the present case, the grounds for arresting the petitioner were that he was found in possession of 1.168 kgs. of charas, which was non- 11 2025:HHC:25614 bailable, and these grounds existed and were conveyed to the petitioner. Hence, prima facie, it cannot be held that the grounds of arrest were not conveyed to the petitioner, and he is entitled to bail on this ground. 16. It was submitted that there is a delay in the progress of the trial. This submission cannot be accepted. The status report shows that the prosecution has examined 14 witnesses within the span of one and a half years from the date of presentation of the challan. The copies of the order sheets have not been filed to show that the delay is attributable to the prosecution. Therefore, the plea of the petitioner that he is entitled to bail on the ground of delay in the progress of the trial cannot be accepted. 17. Consequently, the present petition fails and the same is dismissed. 18. The observations made heretofore shall remain confined to the disposal of the petition and will have no bearing, whatsoever, on the merits of the case. (Rakesh Kainthla) Judge 1st August 2025 (Chander)