P.Gowtham vs The State Rep By, The Inspector Of Police

These are two petitions for bail under Section 483 of BNSS, in a case under the NDPS Act. Both arise out of Crime No.494 of 2025 on the file of the T-4 Maduravoyal Police Station, Chennai, registered for offences under Section 8(c) read with Sections 20(b)(ii)(A), 22(c), 25 and 29(1) of the Act, and now pending as C.C.No.1673 of 2025 on the file of the I Additional Special Court for Exclusive Trial of Cases under the NDPS Act, Chennai. The petitioner in Crl.O.P.No.27711 of 2026, Karthik, is the second accused. The petitioner in Crl.O.P.No.27411 of 2026, Gowtham, is the fourth accused. Both were arrested on 12.07.2025 and remanded to judicial custody on 13.07.2025. Each is before this Court for the fourth time. The petitions were heard together and are disposed of by this common order.

The case of the prosecution is that on the evening of 12.07.2025, on information that one Vasanth would come to sell methamphetamine near the Kamatchi Amman Nagar 2nd Street junction, Maduravoyal, a police party intercepted him and recovered 5.25 grams of methamphetamine from his person. He is the first accused. On his disclosure, the party went that night to the house at No.51, Kamatchi Amman Koil Street, 2nd Cross Street, Maduravoyal, which is his address, and found nine persons there, among them both petitioners. Karthik produced a zip-lock cover containing LSD stamps weighing 0.81 grams and cash of Rs.50,000/-. Aakash, the third accused, produced 350 grams of ganja and an electronic weighing machine. Nothing was recovered from the other seven, including Gowtham. All ten were arrested. The case against those from whom nothing was recovered rests on the disclosure of the first accused, that all of them were friends who consumed, and jointly purchased and sold, ganja, methamphetamine and LSD stamps procured by Karthik from a supplier abroad through a messaging application, and on their presence in the house.

Under the Table to Notification S.O.1055(E) dated 19.10.2001, the commercial quantity of lysergide (LSD), Serial No.133, is 0.1 gram. The 0.81-gram lysergide (LSD) produced by Karthik is eight times that figure and is a commercial quantity. The 5.25 grams of methamphetamine (Serial No.159: commercial quantity 50 grams) is an intermediate quantity, and the 350 grams of ganja is a small quantity. The LSD alone attracts Section 37 of the Act.

The petitioners have been in custody since 12.07.2025, that is, for about one year and three months. The final report was filed on 28.10.2025 and taken on file on 27.11.2025. The case status filed with the papers shows the case posted from date to date for remand up to 20.05.2026, and the counter affidavits state that it now stands posted to 21.10.2026 "for CMP pending". The record does not show that charges have been framed.

By a common order dated 11.12.2025 in Crl.R.C.Nos.2494 and 2304 of 2025, this Court set aside the remand of the fifth, sixth, ninth and tenth accused, on the ground that the grounds of arrest had not been communicated to them in writing, following Mihir Rajesh Shah (cited supra). The seventh accused was released on 05.01.2026 in Crl.R.C.No.2829 of 2025; that order is referred to in the orders of 16.04.2026 and 08.10.2026. By order dated 08.10.2026 in Crl.O.P.No.29209 of 2026, the remand of the third accused was set aside on the same ground. By order dated 14.10.2026 in Crl.O.P.No.29789 of 2026, the like prayer of the first accused was allowed. Seven of the ten accused are thus at liberty, each under an order setting aside his remand; none has been granted bail on the merits. The record does not disclose the position of the eighth accused.

Learned counsel for Karthik submitted

Learned counsel for Gowtham submitted

Learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side), on the counter affidavits of the Inspector of Police, opposed both petitions. It was submitted that the LSD produced by Karthik is a commercial quantity and Section 37 applies to both petitioners, neither of whom has pleaded or established the twin conditions, which are cumulative, as held in Union of India v. Ram Samujh, (1999) 9 SCC 429, State of Kerala v. Rajesh, (2020) 12 SCC 122, and Narcotics Control Bureau v. Mohit Aggarwal, (2022) 18 SCC 374; that both are charged under Section 29(1) and recovery from each conspirator is not required; that the presence of ten persons at night in a house from which a commercial quantity, cash and a weighing machine were recovered is no innocent coincidence; that the disclosure of the first accused names both; that Karthik, who produced the contraband himself, is the principal link in the chain of supply and knew the basis of his arrest; that Mihir Rajesh Shah (cited supra) operates prospectively, as held by the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in Karan Singh v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2026 SCC OnLine Del 282, and that under Vihaan Kumar v. State of Haryana, (2025) 5 SCC 799, which governed the arrest, communication of the grounds in substance sufficed and no prejudice is shown; that Karthik withdrew his revision against the remand and has a pending case under the Act, Crime No.273 of 2022 of the F-3 Nungambakkam Police Station, under Sections 8(c) read with 20(b)(ii)(B), 22(c), 25 and 29(1) of the Act, pending as C.C.No.109 of 2023; that Section 50 applies to the search of the person alone, as held in State of Himachal Pradesh v. Pawan Kumar, (2005) 4 SCC 350, and Gowtham's person was not searched; that the final report was on file before the first petitions were dismissed and nothing new has arisen; that the grounds now urged were urged and rejected on 16.04.2026, and successive petitions on the same grounds are barred.

I have considered the rival submissions and perused the material placed before me.

Two things have happened on this record since 16.04.2026, dismissal of the earlier petition for bail. First, six more months have passed in custody, and the record still does not show that charges have been framed, nearly eleven months after the final report was taken on file. Secondly, the third accused and the first accused have been released, on 08.10.2026 and 14.10.2026, so that seven of the ten accused are now at liberty, including the first accused, from whose person the methamphetamine was recovered, whose house it was, and on whose disclosure the police went there, and the third accused, who produced the ganja and the weighing machine. Those who remain in custody are the two petitioners and, so far as the record shows, the eighth accused.

Before that, I deal with the ground on which the co-accused were released, because both petitions, in one form or another, invoke it. The co-accused were not granted bail. Their remand was set aside, on the finding that the grounds of arrest had not been communicated to them in writing, in terms of Mihir Rajesh Shah (cited supra). That ground is not available to either petitioner, for these reasons. Both were arrested on 12.07.2025, before that judgment was pronounced on 06.11.2025. Both urged this very ground in Crl.O.P.Nos.7030 and 4117 of 2026, and it was rejected on 16.04.2026, on the view that the judgment operates prospectively, as held in Sundar Rao (cited supra). That view accords with State of Meghalaya v. Sonam Raghuvanshi, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 1392, in which the Supreme Court also held, at paragraph 12, that

Karthik, besides, challenged his remand in a revision and withdrew it. Gowtham does not take the plea in the present petition at all. The orders of 08.10.2026 and 14.10.2026 were passed on the petitions of the third and the first accused, on the plea as taken by them; they do not reopen a question decided against these petitioners by a coordinate Bench on 16.04.2026, which stands. For Karthik there is a further answer. Under Vihaan Kumar (cited supra), which governs an arrest made before 06.11.2025, what is required is that the grounds be communicated effectively. The complaint of a man who was arrested at the moment he produced LSD stamps and cash from the house is, at best, that the written intimation given to him was inadequate, and a complaint of inadequacy calls for prejudice to be shown, as Sonam Raghuvanshi (cited supra) holds. None is shown. He challenged the remand, withdrew the challenge, and has argued three petitions for bail on the merits. I therefore rest nothing on the ground of arrest in either petition, and the claim of parity, so far as it is founded on that ground, fails.

I turn to Karthik. His remaining ground, that he has no connection with the contraband, is contradicted by the record. The first information report, the final report and the counter affidavit state that he produced the LSD stamps and the cash himself, and his own petition, in paragraph 2, admits that 0.81 grams of LSD was seized at the house. I leave out of account the disclosure of the first accused, which is a statement to a police officer and cannot be proved against him, as held in Tofan Singh (cited supra). Without it, the recovery of a commercial quantity from his own hands remains, and on that material I am unable to hold that there are reasonable grounds for believing that he is not guilty of the offence. The release of the co-accused does not improve his position on that question; his case stands on a different footing from theirs, because the commercial quantity was produced by him. On the second condition, the counter affidavit sets out a pending case against him under this very Act, Crime No.273 of 2022 of the F-3 Nungambakkam Police Station, registered under Sections 8(c) read with 20(b)(ii)(B), 22(c), 25 and 29(1) of the Act and pending trial as C.C.No.109 of 2023. That is a particularised antecedent, of the same kind as the present charge, and the present offence is alleged to have been committed while that case was pending. The petition does not mention it. An antecedent under the Act weighs heavily on the question whether the accused is likely to commit an offence while on bail, as held in State by the Inspector of Police v. B. Ramu, 2024 INSC 114, and I am unable to hold that he is not likely to do so. Neither condition in Section 37(1)(b)(ii) is satisfied in his favour. The custody of about one year and three months is a circumstance that weighs, but the right to a speedy trial is to be exercised within the framework of Section 37 and cannot be pressed into service solely on the ground of delay to override it, as held in State of Punjab v. Sukhwinder Singh @ Gora, (2026) 7 SCC 513. The answer to the delay is a direction to the trial Court. Crl.O.P.No.27711 of 2026 fails.

Gowtham's case is different, and the two changes noticed above tell in his favour. Once such a change is shown, the satisfaction under Section 37 has to be recorded on the whole of the material as it stands today, and the reasons on which bail was earlier refused have to be answered.

The material against Gowtham, after the statements of the accused to the police are left out as Tofan Singh (cited supra) requires, is this: he was present in the first accused's house that night, as one of nine persons, when the second accused produced the LSD stamps and the third accused the ganja. That is all. Nothing was recovered from him, from any premises of his, or at his instance. The counter affidavit does not refer to any call detail record, financial transaction, electronic record, message, identification or witness that attributes any act to him. The contact with the supplier through the messaging application is attributed to the second accused. The investigation is complete, and the final report, filed a year ago, carries nothing more against him than the first information report did. The order dated 24.11.2025 itself recorded that no statement spoke to his knowledge of the LSD in the house. The counter affidavit meets this by saying that recovery from each conspirator is not required and that the presence of ten persons at night at such a place is no coincidence. Possession, to be conscious, requires knowledge and control, and the quantity recovered from a co-accused can be put to the account of another only on material of concert that is more than inference or conjecture, as held in Nadeem Ahamed v. State of West Bengal, 2025 INSC 993.

The presence of a young man in a friend's house, where another man produces a packet from that house, is a circumstance; it is not, without more, possession of what was in the packet, and the record discloses nothing more. The order dated 16.04.2026 took a prima facie view that presence indicated conscious possession, and declined to consider the case on individual recovery alone. I have accepted its finding that the ground of arrest is not open to the petitioner. On the question of possession, however, the record now stands differently: the investigation that looked for a link between this petitioner and the contraband has, so far as the respondent discloses, found none, and the accused from whom the contraband was recovered are at liberty. A completed investigation of that kind is, in my view, a substantial probable cause for believing that the petitioner is not guilty of the offence involving the commercial quantity, and "reasonable grounds" means something more than prima facie grounds, as held in State of Kerala v. Rajesh (cited supra). Whether his presence makes him a party to a conspiracy is for the trial Court to decide on the evidence, and I express no view on it. Mohit Aggarwal (cited supra), relied on by the respondent, holds that bail is not to be granted merely because nothing was recovered from the accused where other material, independent of a co-accused's statement, connects him with the offence; there, such other material existed. Here the respondent, after a completed investigation, points to none.

The counter affidavit alleges no previous case against Gowtham, and the apprehensions it expresses of absconding, repetition and tampering are stated in general terms without a particular in support. The custody of about one year and three months, and the fact that the first and third accused, from whom the contraband was recovered, and five others are at liberty while the trial has not begun, weigh in the same direction. This order does not rest on them, but a Court asked to keep in custody, on this material, the one man against whom there is no recovery, cannot leave them out of the scales.

Accordingly, I record that there are reasonable grounds for believing that Gowtham is not guilty of the offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail, within the meaning of Section 37(1)(b)(ii) of the Act, the Public Prosecutor having been heard in opposition.

The accused have been in custody since 12.07.2025, the final report was taken on file on 27.11.2025, and charges have not been framed. The I Additional Special Court for Exclusive Trial of Cases under the NDPS Act, Chennai, is directed to take up the framing of charges in C.C.No.1673 of 2025 within four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order, without adjourning the case for that purpose except for reasons to be recorded, and thereafter to proceed with the trial as early as possible and to make every endeavour to conclude it within nine months thereafter.

In the result, Crl.O.P.No.27711 of 2026 is dismissed, and Crl.O.P.No.27411 of 2026 is allowed and the petitioner in Crl.O.P.No.27411 of 2026, Gowtham, is ordered to be released on bail on his executing a bond for a sum of Rs.25,000/- (Rupees Twenty Five Thousand only) with two sureties, each for a like sum to the satisfaction of the learned I Additional Special Judge, Special Court for EC Act Cases, Chennai, and on further conditions that:

[a] the sureties shall affix his photographs and Left Thumb Impression in the Application for Surety ship [Judicial Form No.46 annexed to 'The Criminal Rules of Practice, 2019']. The learned Magistrate shall obtain a copy of any one of the identity proofs to ensure his identity;