1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA. Cr.MP(M) No.1289 of 2026 Decided on: 10.08.2026 ____________________________________________________________ Yashwant Singh ………..Petitioner Versus State of Himachal Pradesh ……….Respondent ____________________________________________________________ Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sandeep Sharma, Judge. Whether approved for reporting? 1 For the Petitioner : Mr. Manoj Pathak, Senior Advocate with Mr. Parth Sagar & Mr. Vishal Thakur, Advocates. For the Respondent : Mr. Rajan Kahol & Mr. Vishal Panwar, Additional Advocates General with Mr. Ravi Chauhan & Mr. Anish Banshtu, Deputy Advocates General. ASI Tarun Singh, PS Anni, District Kullu, HP present in person along with record. ____________________________________________________________ Sandeep Sharma, Judge (oral): Sequel to order dated 16.07.2026, whereby this Court enlarged the bail-petitioner on interim bail in case FIR No.37/2026, dated 21.05.2026, registered at Police Station 1 Whether the reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2 Anni, District Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, under Sections 20 and 29 of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (in short “Act”), respondent/State has filed status report and ASI Tarun Singh has come present with record. Record perused and returned. 2. Close scrutiny of status report/record reveals that on 21.05.2026, police intercepted one car bearing No. HR-31- V-1424 for checking. Since occupants of the car, after seeing police, got perplexed and started making excuses, police, after having associated independent witnesses, deemed it necessary to search the car as well as its occupants and allegedly recovered 7 kg of charas from the boot of the car. Since no plausible explanation ever came to be rendered on record qua possession of the aforesaid contraband, police, after having completed necessary codal formalities, lodged an FIR and arrested the occupants of the car namely Manoj Kumar and Rajesh Kumari, who allegedly disclosed that contraband was received by them from Gopal Singh and 3 present bail-petitioner namely Yashwant Singh for total sale consideration of Rs.3,50,000/-. However, before petitioner could be arrested, he approached this court in instant proceedings for grant of interim bail. 3. Vide order dated 16.07.2026, this court enlarged the petitioner on interim bail subject to his joining investigation. Since pursuant to afore order, petitioner has already joined the investigation and nothing remains to be recovered from him, prayer has been made on his behalf for confirmation of interim bail granted vide order dated 16.07.2026. 4. While fairly admitting factum with regard to joining of investigation by the petitioner, Mr. Rajan Kahol, learned Additional Advocate General, states that certain recoveries with regard to mobile phone and cash are yet to be effected and as such, prayer made on behalf of the petitioner to make order dated 16.07.2026 absolute may not be accepted. He further states that there is overwhelming 4 evidence adduced on record suggestive of the fact that petitioner is drug peddler, against whom two cases already stand registered in past and in event of his being enlarged on bail, he may not only flee from justice, but may again indulge in these activities. 5. Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner placed heavy reliance upon judgment passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in Criminal Appeal No.3640 of 2025 @ SLP (Crl) No.9190 of 2025, titled as Jugraj Singh Vs. State of Punjab, wherein it came be ruled that joining the investigation means making oneself available to the Investigating Officer and answering lawful questions; it does not mean that an accused is obliged to make self-incriminating disclosures. Mere failure to provide information that may lead to recovery or identification of other persons cannot, by itself, be treated as “non-cooperation” warranting custodial interrogation. 6. Having heard learned counsel for parties and perused material available on record, this court finds that 5 contraband, which is of commercial quantity, never came to be recovered from the conscious possession of the petitioner, rather same was recovered from the car being driven by Manoj Kumar, who allegedly disclosed that contraband recovered from his car was supplied by the present bail- petitioner along with Gopal Singh for total sum of Rs.3,50,000/-. Though at first instance, prosecution attempted to prove that sum of Rs.3,00,000/- was paid through bank transaction, but since no document in that regard ever came to be produced on record, it has attempted to set up plea that Rs.3,50,000/- was received in cash by the petitioner. However, no such evidence has been produced on record. 7. Leaving everything aside, it is apparent from the record that petitioner has been named in FIR on the basis of confessional statement made by the co-accused. Question, which needs to be determined in the case at hand is “whether confessional statement made by the co-accused 6 can be taken into consideration for arraying another accused in the case?” 8. Hon’ble Apex Court in case Tofan Singh v. State of Tamil Nadu (2021) 4 SCC 1, has categorically held that statement, if any, made under Section 67 of the ND & PS Act, is inadmissible and same cannot be used as confessional statement in the trial of an offence under ND & PS Act. Relevant para of the aforesaid judgment reads as under: “155. Thus, to arrive at the conclusion that a confessional statement made before an officer designated under section 42 or section 53 can be the basis to convict a person under the NDPS Act, without any non obstante clause doing away with section 25 of the Evidence Act, and without any safeguards, would be a direct infringement of the constitutional guarantees contained in Articles 14, 20(3) and 21 of the Constitution of India. 156. The judgment in Kanhaiyalal (supra) then goes on to follow Raj Kumar Karwal (supra) in paragraphs 44 and 45. For the reasons stated by us hereinabove, both these judgments do not state the law correctly, and are thus overruled by us. Other judgments that expressly refer to and rely upon these judgments, or upon the principles laid down by these judgments, also stand overruled for the reasons given by us. 7 157. On the other hand, for the reasons given by us in this judgment, the judgments of Noor Aga (supra) and Nirmal are correct in law. 158. We answer the reference by stating: (i) That the officers who are invested with powers under section 53 of the NDPS Act are “police officers” within the meaning of section 25 of the Evidence Act, as a result of which any confessional statement made to them would be barred under the provisions of section 25 of the Evidence Act, and cannot be taken into account in order to convict an accused under the NDPS Act. (ii) That a statement recorded under section 67 of the NDPS Act cannot be used as a confessional statement in the trial of an offence under the NDPS Act.” 9. The Hon’ble Apex Court in case titled State by (NCB) Bengaluru v. Pallulabid Ahmad Arimutta and Anr, Special Leave to Appeal (Crl) No. 242 of 2022 (arising out of diary No. 22702 of 2020) decided on 10.1.2022, again reiterated that confessional statement recorded under Section 67 of the ND & PS Act, will remain inadmissible in the trial of an offence under the Act. Hon’ble Apex Court in this case upheld the order/judgment passed by the High Court of 8 Karnataka granting bail to the accused arrested by the petitioner NCB on the basis of confessional/voluntary statement of the co-accused under Section 67 of the ND & PS Act. Apart from above, Hon’ble Apex Court in the aforesaid judgment has held that CDR of some of the accused or the allegations of tempering of evidence on the part of the respondents is an aspect that will be examined at the stage of the trial. 10. Since bail-petitioner has already joined the investigation and nothing remains to be recovered from the bail-petitioner, there appears to be no justification for custodial interrogation of the bail-petitioner, rather he can be bound down to make himself available for investigation, as and when required by the Investigating Agency. Moreover, on account of recovery of intermediate quantity of contraband, rigours of Section 37 of the Act are not attracted. 11. By now it is well settled that freedom of an individual is of utmost importance and cannot be curtailed for 9 indefinite period. Till the time guilt of accused is not proved, in accordance with law, he is deemed to be innocent. In the case at hand, the guilt, if any, of the bail petitioners is yet to be proved, in accordance with law. 12. The Hon'ble Apex Court in Criminal Appeal No.227/2018, Dataram Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr decided on 6.2.2018 has categorically held that freedom of an individual is of utmost importance and same cannot be curtailed merely on the basis of suspicion. Hon’ble Apex Court has further held that till the time guilt of accused is not proved, in accordance with law, he is deemed to be innocent. The relevant paras No.2 to 5 of the judgment are reproduced as under:- 2. A fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a person is believed to be innocent until found guilty. However, there are instances in our criminal law where a reverse onus has been placed on an accused with regard to some specific offences but that is another matter and does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect of other offences. Yet another important facet of our criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the general rule and putting a 10 person in jail or in a prison or in a correction home (whichever expression one may wish to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result that more and more persons are being incarcerated and for longer periods. This does not do any good to our criminal jurisprudence or to our society. 3. There is no doubt that the grant or denial of bail is entirely the discretion of the judge considering a case but even so, the exercise of judicial discretion has been circumscribed by a large number of decisions rendered by this Court and by every High Court in the country. Yet, occasionally there is a necessity to introspect whether denying bail to an accused person is the right thing to do on the facts and in the circumstances of a case. 4. While so introspecting, among the factors that need to be considered is whether the accused was arrested during investigations when that person perhaps has the best opportunity to tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses. If the investigating officer does not find it necessary to arrest an accused person during investigations, a strong case should be made out for placing that person in judicial custody after a charge sheet is filed. Similarly, it is important to ascertain whether the accused was participating in the investigations to the satisfaction of the investigating officer and was not absconding or not appearing when required by the investigating officer. Surely, if an accused is not hiding from the investigating officer or is hiding due to some genuine and expressed fear of being victimised, it would be a factor that a judge would need to consider in an appropriate case. It is also necessary for the judge to consider whether the accused is a first-time offender or has been accused of other offences and if so, the nature of such offences 11 and his or her general conduct. The poverty or the deemed indigent status of an accused is also an extremely important factor and even Parliament has taken notice of it by incorporating an Explanation to Section 436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. An equally soft approach to incarceration has been taken by Parliament by inserting Section 436A in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. 5. To put it shortly, a humane attitude is required to be adopted by a judge, while dealing with an application for remanding a suspect or an accused person to police custody or judicial custody. There are several reasons for this including maintaining the dignity of an accused person, howsoever poor that person might be, the requirements of Article 21 of the Constitution and the fact that there is enormous overcrowding in prisons, leading to social and other problems as noticed by this Court in In Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons 13. Needless to say, object of the bail is to secure the attendance of the accused in the trial and the proper test to be applied in the solution of the question whether bail should be granted or refused is whether it is probable that the party will appear to take his trial. Otherwise, bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Otherwise also, normal rule is of bail and not jail. Court has to keep in mind nature of accusations, nature of evidence in support thereof, severity of the punishment which conviction will entail, character of the 12 accused, circumstances which are peculiar to the accused involved in that crime. 14. The Hon’ble Apex Court in Sanjay Chandra versus Central Bureau of Investigation (2012)1 Supreme Court Cases 49; held as under:- “The object of bail is to secure the appearance of the accused person at his trial by reasonable amount of bail. The object of bail is neither punitive nor preventative. Deprivation of liberty must be considered a punishment, unless it can be required to ensure that an accused person will stand his trial when called upon. The Courts owe more than verbal respect to the principle that punishment begins after conviction, and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and duly found guilty. Detention in custody pending completion of trial could be a cause of great hardship. From time to time, necessity demands that some unconvicted persons should be held in custody pending trial to secure their attendance at the trial but in such cases, “necessity” is the operative test. In India , it would be quite contrary to the concept of personal liberty enshrined in the Constitution that any person should be punished in respect of any matter, upon which, he has not been convicted or that in any circumstances, he should be deprived of his liberty upon only the belief that he will tamper with the witnesses if left at liberty, save in the most extraordinary circumstances. Apart from the question of prevention being the object of refusal of bail, one must not lose sight of the fact that any 13 imprisonment before conviction has a substantial punitive content and it would be improper for any court to refuse bail as a mark of disapproval of former conduct whether the accused has been convicted for it or not or to refuse bail to an unconvicted person for the propose of giving him a taste of imprisonment as a lesson.” 15. The Hon’ble Apex Court in Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee and Another (2010) 14 SCC 496, has laid down the following principles to be kept in mind, while deciding petition for bail: (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 grant of bail. 16. Consequently, in view of the above, order dated 16.07.2026 passed by this Court, is made absolute, with following conditions:- 14 a. he shall make himself available for the purpose of interrogation, if so required and regularly attend the trial Court on each and every date of hearing and if prevented by any reason to do so, seek exemption from appearance by filing appropriate application; b. he shall not tamper with the prosecution evidence nor hamper the investigation of the case in any manner whatsoever; c. he shall not make any inducement, threat or promises to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade him from disclosing such facts to the Court or the Police Officer; and d. he shall not leave the territory of India without the prior permission of the Court. 17. It is clarified that if the petitioner misuses his liberty or violates any of the conditions imposed upon him, the Investigating Agency shall be free to move this Court for cancellation of the bail. 18. Any observations made hereinabove shall not be construed to be a reflection on the merits of the case and shall remain confined to the disposal of this application alone. 19. The bail petition stands disposed of accordingly. The petitioner is permitted to produce copy of order 15 downloaded from the High Court website and the trial Court shall not insist for certified copy of the order, however, it may verify the order from the High Court website or otherwise. August 10, 2026 (Sandeep Sharma), (sunil) Judge