High court iterates default bail after 180 days in drugs case
Times of India | 28 November 2024
Kolkata: A charge sheet in a drugs case, filed without the forensic report, was no charge sheet, and all accused were entitled to default bail after 180 days, Calcutta High Court stated on Wednesday.
Taking note of the fact that in multiple such cases, which were now before the Supreme Court and which allowed interim bail, the high court granted interim bail to an accused, who was arrested for allegedly carrying huge quantities of a cough syrup, banned in India.
"By filing the forensic report subsequently, along with a supplementary charge sheet, after the accused person availed of his right to obtain statutory bail, such right of the accused person cannot be refuted," the division bench of Justice Arijit Banerjee and Justice Apurba Sinha Ray stated.
It was the petitioner's case that although the charge sheet in the case was filed within the statutory period of 180 days, it was filed without the forensic report. The forensic report was filed with a supplementary charge sheet after the petitioner approached the trial court for statutory bail. The trial court heard him and rejected the prayer.
The division bench stated that the trial court should have granted the bail. Calcutta HC granted him interim bail till the end of Jan 2025.
The state advocate argued that the issue of whether a forensic report must accompany the charge sheet in a drugs case and if not, whether the charge sheet would be considered invalid, had been pending for consideration before the Supreme Court in various writ petitions.