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Narcotic Control Bureau v. Lakhwinder Singh

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 190Decided 29 Jan 2025
Criminal Appeal No. 475 of 2025 (arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 5215 of 2021)
Justice Abhay S. Oka · Justice Ujjal Bhuyan

Background

The respondent was convicted under the NDPS Act and sentenced to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment. While his appeal against that conviction was pending in the High Court and unlikely to be heard before his sentence was fully served, the High Court suspended his sentence and released him on bail after he had already spent about 4.5 years in custody. The Narcotic Control Bureau appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing he should not get bail because he had not yet served at least half of his sentence, relying on an older Supreme Court ruling that set benchmarks for releasing undertrial NDPS prisoners.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court clarified that the earlier ruling relied on by the NCB was meant as a one-time relief measure for undertrial prisoners and does not take away a court's ordinary power to grant bail on the merits of a case, even under the NDPS Act's strict bail conditions (Section 37). Since the respondent's appeal was unlikely to be heard before his full sentence expired and he had already served a substantial portion of it, denying him bail purely because he had not crossed the "half sentence served" mark would violate his right to personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. The appeal was dismissed and the bail order upheld, with liberty for the NCB to seek cancellation of bail if it is misused.

Lesson Learnt

Even under a strict law like the NDPS Act, a convicted person cannot be made to serve out their entire sentence while their appeal against that very conviction sits unheard. Courts can and should grant bail pending appeal in deserving cases so that the right to appeal and the right to liberty are not rendered meaningless.

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

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