Himachal Pradesh High Court rejects bail plea in NDPS case
Vijay Arora
Legal Correspondent
Shimla, May 31
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has rejected the bail plea of suspect Rajat Sharma, who was allegedly involved in the case of death of a student due to a chitta overdose in NIT-Hamirpur.
While rejecting the bail plea, Justice Ranjan Sharma observed, “To attain the objective of the NDPS Act and to ensure the rule of law, such persons who are prima facie involved in nefarious drug abuse, such person have no vested right to be enlarged on bail under the pretext of alleged claim of violation of their liberty in Article 21 for the reason, that the alleged assertion of infringement of personal liberty has to succumb to the larger interest of the society, which obviously is at a much higher pedestrian. The plea of seeking bail, claiming violation of personal liberty is a farce when, the liberty of a person ends where liberty of another, including the society at large, is in sought to be or actually violated, as in this case.”
As per the prosecution, on October 23, 2023, a first semester student of MTech at NIT-Hamirpur died of an overdose of chitta in the
hostel. The police arrested a dozen people in this case under the Section 304 of the IPC and the NDPS Act. The petitioner was also arrested in this connection and at the time of his arrest, he threw a small packet containing heroin, which, upon weighing, came to be 6.98 gm.
It was further alleged that the bail petitioner was involved in the sale of heroin to the students of a prestigious institution in the state. It was alleged that the deceased student died due to an overdose of heroin at the behest of the bail petitioner. Dismissing the bail petition, the court observed, “Gravity of the accusation against the bail petitioner, is writ large, as he had resorted to illegal activities of sale, inter-state import, transportation, purchase of heroin and had further sold it to the students of NIT-Hamirpur in this case. Such grave offence on the part of the bail petitioner, refrains this Court, from enlarging the bail petitioner on bail, in larger societal interest, at this stage.”
