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Bharat Chaudhary v. Union of India

Special Leave Petition (Criminal) · 2021 INSC 877Decided 13 Dec 2021
Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 5703 of 2021
Chief Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice Surya Kant · Justice Hima Kohli

Background

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized around 1,37,665 tablets suspected to be psychotropic substances from four locations in Chennai and arrested several accused, including Bharat Chaudhary, who was based in Jaipur and allegedly directed the supply of the tablets. A trial court granted Chaudhary bail, relying on the Supreme Court's ruling in Tofan Singh that a co-accused's confession under Section 67 of the NDPS Act is not admissible evidence. The Madras High Court later cancelled that bail and also rejected bail for another accused, Raja Chandrasekharan.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court restored Chaudhary's bail and also granted bail to Chandrasekharan. It found that the test reports on the seized tablets were inconclusive on "quantitative analysis," that a large number of the tablets were actually male-enhancement drugs outside the NDPS Act's scope, and that no contraband was ever recovered from Chaudhary's own premises. The Court held that mere reliance on a co-accused's Section 67 statement, without independent corroboration, was too weak a basis to keep the bail cancelled, especially given the Tofan Singh precedent. It clarified these were only prima facie bail-stage observations, not a ruling on the merits of the pending trial.

Lesson Learnt

In NDPS cases, bail should not be denied based solely on an uncorroborated statement by a co-accused, and courts must examine whether forensic test reports actually establish the "commercial quantity" required under the Act before treating an accusation as conclusively serious.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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