2025:HHC:33299 IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA Cr. MP (M) No. 1892 of 2025 Reserved on: 15.09.2025 Date of Decision: 24.09.2025 Rajesh Kumar ...Petitioner Versus State of Himachal Pradesh ...Respondent Coram Hon’ble Mr Justice Rakesh Kainthla, Judge. Whether approved for reporting?1 No For the Petitioner : Mr Umesh Kanwar, Advocate. For the Respondent/State : Mr Ajit Sharma, Deputy Advocate General. Rakesh Kainthla, Judge The petitioner has filed the present petition for seeking regular bail in F.I.R. 270 of 2024, dated 12.12.2024, registered for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 20 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (in short ‘NDPS Act’) at Police Station Nurpur, District Kangra, HP. 1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes. 2 2025:HHC:33299 2. It has been asserted that the police party intercepted a vehicle bearing registration No. HP-53B-9168 and recovered 4.36 kilograms of charas from the rear door of the vehicle. The driver and occupants of the vehicle ran away from the spot. They identified themselves as Raj Kumar and Sham Lal, who were arrested. Raj Kumar disclosed that the charas was supplied by the petitioner and was to be delivered to Bunty Kumar. The police arrested the petitioner on 08.05.2025. The statement made by the co-accused is inadmissible in evidence, and there is no other evidence to connect the petitioner with the commission of an offence punishable under the NDPS Act. The petitioner would abide by all the terms and conditions which the Court may impose. Therefore, it was prayed that the present petition be allowed and the petitioner be released on bail. 3 The petition is opposed by filing a status report asserting that the police were on patrolling duty on 12.12.2024 when they received the information that Charas was being transported in the vehicle bearing registration No. HP-53B-9168. The police reduced the information to writing and sent it to a supervisory officer. The police signalled the vehicle bearing registration No. HP-53B-9168 to stop; 3 2025:HHC:33299 however, the driver sped away with the vehicle towards Talwara. The vehicle was stopped at a lonely place, and the occupants of the vehicle ran away from the spot. The police searched the vehicle and recovered 4.36 kilograms of charas. The police seized the charas and arrested Raj Kumar, who revealed on inquiry that he was told by Shyam Lal to take the vehicle towards Jawali. Two persons signalled him to stop the vehicle, but he sped away in the vehicle at the instance of Shyam Lal. Subsequently, he and Shyam Lal ran away after stopping the vehicle at a lonely place. Shyam Lal was to deliver the charas to Bunty Kumar at the instance of the petitoiner. The petitioner had called the co-accused Sham Lal and Raj Kumar. The petitioner had made a video call to the co-accused Sham Lal and Bunty. Rajesh Kumar revealed during the inquiry that the petitioner had shown the photograph of the charas during the video call. The screenshot of the WhatsApp chat was taken in possession. The data from Bunty's mobile has been retrieved, which shows that Bunty and the petitioner had talked to each other. The petitioner would indulge in the commission of a similar offence in case of his release on bail. Hence, the status report. 4 2025:HHC:33299 4. I have heard Mr Umesh Kanwar, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr Ajit Sharma, learned Deputy Advocate General, for the respondent/State. 5. Mr Umesh Kanwar, learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner is innocent and he was falsely implicated. There is no material to connect the petitioner with the commission of crime. The petitioner would abide by all the terms and conditions which the Court may impose. The police have filed the charge sheet. Photograph, stated to have been sent by the petitioner to the co-accused Bunty, was not annexed to the charge-sheet. The police are relying upon the statement of the co-accused and the call detail record to connect the petitioner with the commission of the crime, which are inadmissible. Hence, he prayed that the present petition be allowed and the petitioner be released on bail. 6. Mr Ajit Sharma, learned Deputy Advocate General, for the respondent/State, submitted that the police had recovered 4.36 Kilograms of charge from the vehicle, which is a commercial quantity of charge. Rigours of Section 37 of the NDPS Act apply to the present case. The petitioner has failed to 5 2025:HHC:33299 satisfy the twin conditions laid down under Section 37 of the NDPS Act. Therefore, he prayed that the present petition be dismissed. 7. I have given considerable thought to the submissions made at the bar and have gone through the records carefully. 8. It is undisputed that the petitioner had earlier filed a bail petition bearing Cr.MP(M) No. 1269 of 2025, which was dismissed by this Court on 24.06.2025. It was held in State of Maharashtra. 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 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 6 2025:HHC:33299 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. 9. 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.” 10. A similar view was taken in State of T.N. v. S.A. Raja, (2005) 8 SCC 380, wherein it was observed: 9. When a learned Single Judge of the same court had denied bail to the respondent for certain reasons, and that order was unsuccessfully challenged before the appellate forum, without there being any major change of circumstances, another fresh application should not have been dealt with within a short span of time unless there were valid grounds giving rise to a tenable case for bail. Of course, the principles of res judicata are not applicable to bail applications, but the repeated filing of bail 7 2025:HHC:33299 applications without there being any change of circumstances would lead to bad precedents. 11. This position was reiterated in Prasad Shrikant Purohit v. State of Maharashtra (2018) 11 SCC 458, wherein it was observed: “30. Before concluding, we must note that though an accused has a right to make successive applications for the grant of bail, the court entertaining such subsequent bail applications has a duty to consider the reasons and grounds on which the earlier bail applications were rejected. In such cases, the court also has a duty to record the fresh grounds, which persuade it to take a view different from the one taken in the earlier applications.” 12. It was held in Ajay Rajaram Hinge v. State of Maharashtra, 2023 SCC OnLine Bom 1551, that a successive bail application can be filed if there is a material change in the circumstances, which means a change in the facts or the law. It was observed: 7. It needs to be noted that the right to file successive bail applications accrues to the applicant only on the existence of a material change in circumstances. The sine qua non for filing subsequent bail applications is a material change in circumstances. A material change in circumstances settled by law is a change in the fact situation or law which requires the earlier view to be interfered with or where the earlier finding has become obsolete. However, a change in circumstance has no bearing on the salutary principle of judicial propriety that successive bail application needs to be decided by the same Judge on the merits, if available at the place of 8 2025:HHC:33299 sitting. There needs to be clarity between the power of a judge to consider the application and a person's right based on a material change in circumstances. A material change in circumstance creates in a person accused of an offence the right to file a fresh bail application. But the power to decide such a subsequent application operates in a completely different sphere, unconnected with the facts of a case. Such power is based on the well-settled and judicially recognised principle that if successive bail applications on the same subject are permitted to be disposed of by different Judges, there would be conflicting orders, and the litigant would be pestering every Judge till he gets an order to his liking resulting in the credibility of the Court and the confidence of the other side being put in issue and there would be wastage of Court's time and that judicial discipline requires that such matter must be placed before the same Judge, if he is available, for orders. The satisfaction of material change in circumstances needs to be adjudicated by the same Judge who had earlier decided the application. Therefore, the same Judge needs to adjudicate whether there is a change in circumstance as claimed by the applicant, which entitles him to file a subsequent bail application.” 13. Therefore, the present bail petition can only be considered based on the change in the circumstances, and it is not permissible to review the order passed by the Court. 14. A perusal of the earlier bail order shows that the involvement of the petitioner was found based on the photograph of the charas found in the mobile phone of the petitioner, which was sent by him to the mobile phone of Bunty. The petitioner had failed to explain the presence of the 9 2025:HHC:33299 photographs in his mobile, which was found sufficient to connect him with the commission of the crime. The police sent the mobile phone to SFSL, and the report does not mention any photograph of charas. The police have also shifted their stand and have stated that photographs of the charas were shown during the video call. Thus, the evidence stated to have been collected against the petitioner was found to be non-existent in the SFSL. Hence, there is insufficient material to connect the petitioner with the commission of the crime after the receipt of the report from the SFSL. 15. It was submitted that the police had recovered a commercial quantity of charas, and the petitioner is not entitled to bail without satisfying the twin conditions laid down under Section 37 of the NDPS Act. This submission cannot be accepted. The police are relying upon the confessional statement of the co-accused, which is inadmissible and the call detail records, which are insufficient without further evidence as to what was talked about. Therefore, prima facie, the petitioner is not connected to the commission of crime and cannot be detained in custody simply because the police had recovered a commercial quantity of charas from the vehicle of the co-accused. 10 2025:HHC:33299 16. The police filed the charge sheet, and the investigation is complete. Hence, no fruitful purpose would be served by detaining the petitioner in custody. 17. It was submitted that the petitioner would influence the witnesses if released on bail. This apprehension can be removed by imposing the conditions, and it is not sufficient to detain the petitioner in custody. 18. Consequently, the present petition is allowed, and the petitioner is ordered to be released on bail subject to his furnishing bail bonds in the sum of ₹1,00,000/- with one surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the learned Trial Court. While on bail, the petitioner will abide by the following terms and conditions: - (I) The petitioner will not intimidate the witnesses, nor will he influence any evidence in any manner whatsoever. (II) The petitioner shall attend the trial on each and every hearing and will not seek unnecessary adjournments. (III) The petitioner will not leave the present address for a continuous period of seven days without furnishing the address of the intended visit to the SHO concerned, the Police Station concerned and the Trial Court. (IV) The petitioner will surrender his passport, if any, to the Court; and (V) The petitioner will furnish his mobile number and social media contact to the Police and the Court and will abide by the summons/notices received from the Police/Court 11 2025:HHC:33299 through SMS/WhatsApp/Social Media Account. In case of any change in the mobile number or social media accounts, the same will be intimated to the Police/Court within five days from the date of the change. 19. It is expressly made clear that in case of violation of any of these conditions, the prosecution will have the right to file a petition for cancellation of the bail. 20. The petition stands accordingly disposed of. A copy of this order be sent to the Jail Superintendent, Lala Lajpat Rai District and Air Correctional Home, Dharamshala, District Kangra, H.P. and the learned Trial Court through FASTER. 21. The observations made hereinabove are regarding the disposal of this petition and will have no bearing, whatsoever, on the case's merits. ( Rakesh Kainthla ) Judge 24th September, 2025 (ravinder) Digitally signed by RAVINDER KUMAR DN: C=IN, O=HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH SHIMLA, Phone=35ecb6f93c6891a7dae90f163e34d7ecaa420b13af1363204ab0e0f5c87077dc, PostalCode=171001, S=Himachal Pradesh, SERIALNUMBER=f6cc63c55495d14ce1f8623eacdb6cb9ef2c553803537a2f53c4ee637cbebaff, CN=RAVINDER KUMAR Reason: I am the author of this document Location: RAVINDER KUMAR Date: 2025-09-24 15:39:49