2026:HHC:15394 IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA Cr. MP(M) No. 657 of 2026 Reserved on: 04.05.2026 Date of Decision: 08.05.2026. Suraj Kumar Sharma …. Petitioner Versus State of HP …. Respondent Coram Hon’ble Mr Justice Rakesh Kainthla, Judge. Whether approved for reporting?1 No. For the Petitioner : Mr Manish Kansra, Advocate. For the Respondent/State: Mr Jitender Sharma, Additional Advocate General. Rakesh Kainthla, Judge The petitioner has filed the present petition for seeking regular bail in FIR No. 234 of 2024 dated 21.11.2024 registered at Police Station Balh, District Mandi, H.P., for the commission of an offence punishable under Section 21 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (hereinafter referred to as NDPS). 1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes. 2 2026:HHC:15394 2. It has been asserted that, as per the prosecution, the police received secret information on 21.11.2024 at 3:45 PM that the petitioner was selling heroin. The police searched the petitioner’s room and recovered heroin weighing 203.1 grams. The petitioner has been in custody for more than one year and four months. The petitioner had filed a bail petition, which was registered as Cr.MP(M) 644 of 2025 and was withdrawn on 01.04.2025. This Court had granted interim bail to the petitioner in Cr.MP(M) No. 1288 of 2025 for three weeks. The petitioner was released on 28.06.2025, and he surrendered on 18.07.2025. The petitioner approached the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in SLP Criminal No. 12554 of 2025, which was dismissed on 10.11.2025. The petitioner again filed a petition for regular bail, which was registered as Cr.MP(M) No. 2910 of 2025 and was dismissed by this Court on 09.01.2026. The petitioner again approached the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in SLP (Criminal) No. 1387 of 2026, which was withdrawn on 30.01.2026. The investigation is complete, and the charge sheet has been filed before the Court on 18.01.2025. The quantity of heroin stated to have been found in the petitioner’s possession was intermediate, and the rigours of Section 37 of the NDPS Act do not apply to the present case. Five 3 2026:HHC:15394 FIRs have been registered against the petitioner. The petitioner would abide by the terms and conditions that the Court may impose. Hence, 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 21.11.2024. They received secret information near Bagla, Gagal Link Road at 3.45 PM that the petitioner was selling heroin, and in case of his search, a huge quantity of heroin could be recovered. The police reduced the information into writing and sent it to the Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO). The police associated Pawan Kumar and Hema Devi and went to the petitioner’s house, where he was present. The police searched the house in the presence of independent witnesses and recovered ₹900/- and 203.1 grams of heroin. The police arrested the petitioner and seized the heroin, which was sent to the FSL and as per the result, it was confirmed to be a sample of Diacetylmorphine. The charge sheet was filed before the Court, and the matter is listed for the prosecution's evidence. FIR Nos. 178/2006, 134/2013, 428/2020, 17/2023, and 208/2023 have been registered against the petitioner. The petitioner would indulge in the commission of a similar offence 4 2026:HHC:15394 in case of his release on bail. The matter is listed for recording the statements of prosecution witnesses on 19.05.2026. Hence, the status report. 4. I have heard Mr Manish Kansra, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr Jitender Sharma, learned Additional Advocate General for the respondent/State. 5. Mr Manish Kansra, learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner is innocent and he was falsely implicated. The police have filed the charge sheet, and no fruitful purpose would be served by detaining the petitioner in custody. The petitioner would abide by the terms and conditions that the Court may impose. Hence, it was prayed that the present petition be allowed and the petitioner be released on bail. 6. Mr Jitender Sharma, learned Additional Advocate General for the respondent/State, submitted that the petitioner had earlier filed bail petitions which were dismissed by this Court. These orders were unsuccessfully challenged before the Hon’ble Supreme Court. The petitioner was found in possession of a huge quantity of heroin. He has criminal antecedents and is likely to indulge in the commission of a similar offence if 5 2026:HHC:15394 released on bail. Hence, he prayed that the present petition be dismissed. 7. I have given a considerable thought to the submissions made at the bar and have gone through the records carefully. 8. It is undisputed that the petitioner had filed bail petitions before this Court, which were registered as Cr.MP(M) No. 644 of 2025 and Cr.MP(M) No. 2910 of 2025, and were dismissed on 01.04.2025 and 09.01.2026. These orders were unsuccessfully challenged before the Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP (Criminal) No. 12554 of 2025 and SLP (Criminal) No. 1387 of 2026. It was held in the 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 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 6 2026:HHC:15394 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. 9. Similar is the judgment delivered in State of M.P. v. Kajad, (2001) 7 SCC 673, wherein it was observed: - 8. It has further to be noted that the factum of the rejection of his earlier bail application bearing Miscellaneous Case No. 2052 of 2000 on 5-6-2000 has not been denied by the respondent. It is true that successive bail applications are permissible under the changed circumstances. But without the change in the circumstances, the second application would be deemed to be seeking a review of the earlier judgment, which is not permissible under criminal law, as has been held by this Court in Hari Singh Mann v. Harbhajan Singh Bajwa [(2001) 1 SCC 169: 2001 SCC (Cri) 113] and various other judgments. 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: 7 2026:HHC:15394 “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. 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 applications without there being any change of circumstances would lead to bad precedents.” 12. 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.” 8 2026:HHC:15394 13. 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 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 recognized 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 9 2026:HHC:15394 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.” 14. Therefore, the present bail petition can only be considered on the basis of the change in the circumstances, and it is not permissible to review the order passed by the Court. 15. This Court had earlier held while deciding Cr.MP(M) No. 2910 of 2025, that there was sufficient material on record to connect the petitioner to the commission of the crime at this stage. The quantity of heroin recovered from the possession of the petitioner was huge, which could not have been meant for self-consumption. The heroin was adversely affecting society, and the criminal antecedents of the petitioner would disentitle him from the concession of bail. These circumstances have not changed. 16. It was submitted that the petitioner has remained in custody since 21.11.2024, and the prosecution has failed to complete the evidence. The copies of the order sheets were not filed to demonstrate that the delay is attributable to the prosecution or the Court. The status report shows that the matter 10 2026:HHC:15394 is pending for recording the statements of prosecution witnesses and is listed on 19.05.2026. Therefore, in the absence of the order sheets, it is difficult to accept the plea taken by the petitioner that there is a delay in the progress of the trial, which would entitle the petitioner to bail. 17. Considering the quantity of heroin found in the possession of the petitioner, the petitioner is not entitled to bail at this stage. However, the petitioner is at liberty to approach the Court in case the trial is not concluded expeditiously. 18. No other point was urged. 19. In view of the above, the present petition fails, and it is dismissed. 20. The observation made herein before shall remain confined to the disposal of the instant petition and will have no bearing whatsoever on the merits of the case. (Rakesh Kainthla) Judge 8th May, 2026 (Nikita)