18.02.2025 Item no. 22. Court No.29. AB (Allowed) CRM (NDPS) 49 of 2025 In Re: An Application for Bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973/Under Section 483 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 in connection with Liluah Police Station Case No.163 of 2023 Dated 14.04.2023 under Section 20(b)(ii)(c)/25/29 of the NDPS Act And In the matter of : Biswaraj Giri @ Raja ……Petitioner. Mr. Joy Chakraborty, Mr. Sandip Dinda ……for the Petitioner. Mrs. Anasuya Sinha, ld. APP Ms. Nandini Chatterjee ……for the State. Dictated by Arijit Banerjee, J. 1. The petitioner renews his prayer for bail, which was rejected earlier on December 19, 2023. He says that he is in custody for more than one year and ten months. Only the first prosecution witness is in the process of being examined. There is no possibility of an early conclusion of the trial. On the touchstone of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, he prays for bail. 2. Opposing the prayer, learned State Counsel points out, with reference to the status report filed in Court today, that about 637 kilograms of ganja was recovered from the joint possession of the accused persons, three of whom hail from Orissa. There have been some systemic delays in the progress of the trial. However, the prosecution intends to examine only 14 out of 18 charge Signed By : APURBA BANDYOPADHYAY High Court of Calcutta 18 th of February 2025 05:42:15 PM 2 sheet named witnesses and it is expected that the trial will conclude within a year. 3. We have considered the rival contentions of the parties. Over the past one year and ten months, only one prosecution witness has been examined and that too, in part. The State intends to examine 14 witnesses in all. The trial is not likely to conclude on an early date. The petitioner has been in custody for quite some time. 4. Without touching the merits of the case and solely on the ground of delay in progress of the trial, coupled with very little possibility of an early conclusion of the trial, we feel constrained to enlarge the petitioner on bail. 5. Accordingly, we direct that the petitioner, namely BISWARAJ GIRI @ RAJA shall be released on bail upon furnishing a bond of Rs.25,000/-, with two sureties of Rs.12,500/-each, one of whom must be local, to the satisfaction of the learned Judge, Special Court under the NDPS Act at Howrah, and on further conditions that he shall not leave the jurisdiction of the Howrah Police Station and shall report to the Inspector-in-Charge of the Howrah Police Station twice a week until further orders. 6. The petitioner shall appear before the trial court on every date of hearing until further orders and shall not intimidate the witnesses and/or tamper with evidence and/or commit any cognizable offence in any manner whatsoever. 3 7. In the event the petitioner fails to adhere to any of the conditions stipulated above without justifiable cause, the trial court shall be at liberty to cancel the petitioner’s bail in accordance with law without further reference to this Court. 8. The application for bail is, accordingly, allowed. 9. All parties shall act in terms of server copy of the order downloaded from the official website of this Court. (Apurba Sinha Ray, J.) (Arijit Banerjee, J.)