Vehicle owner not liable unless involved in drug conspiracy: HC grants anticipatory bail in NDPS case

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that mere ownership of a vehicle used in transporting contraband would not constitute an offence unless there is evidence to show that the owner was part of a conspiracy or had knowledge of its use for drug trafficking.

Granting anticipatory bail to a Ferozepur resident apprehending arrest in a heroin recovery case, Justice Anoop Chitkara asserted: “Simply because a vehicle is involved would not constitute an offense under the NDPS Act unless it is explicitly stated that the person who provided the vehicle or owned it was part of a conspiracy and the vehicle had also been supplied to transport the drugs.”

The court added: “It is common knowledge that a vehicle can be hired, and the owner of the vehicle would not even come to know the purposes for which it was hired. Furthermore, in the community, if somebody asks for a vehicle, a motorbike, or a cycle, people usually do not refuse.”

The case has its genesis in an FIR registered in October 2023, registered at the Sadar police station in Ferozepur under the provisions of the NDPS Act, following the recovery of heroin from three persons. Two more were later arrested. The heroin was purportedly seized from a motorcycle which was subsequently found to be registered in the petitioner’s name, leading to his arraignment as an accused.

The petitioner, however, denied ownership of the motorcycle at the time of recovery, asserting that he had handed over its possession to a person prior to August 23, 2017. The court was also told that the other person had even moved the high court for release of the motorcycle.

Emphasising the philosophy behind the law of bail, Justice Chitkara asserted that “personal liberty is a very precious fundamental right and it should be curtailed only when it becomes imperative according to the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case”.

The court added that “personal liberty deprived when bail is refused is too precious a value of our constitutional system recognised under Article 21 that the curial power to negate it is a great trust exercisable, not casually, but judicially with lively concern for the cost to the individual and the community”.

The bench added that the evidence collected might be prima facie sufficient to launch prosecution or even to frame the charges. But the evidence was insufficient for the purpose of denying bail.

“Given the penal provisions invoked, the legal admissibility of evidence collected against the petitioner, coupled with the prima facie analysis of the nature of allegations, and the other factors peculiar to this case, there would be no justifiability for further custodial interrogation or pre-trial incarceration,” the bench added.

Granting anticipatory bail, Justice Chitkara clarified that “the investigation indicates that the petitioner is not the main accused, so the petitioner’s bail shall not be treated as a precedent for granting bail to the other co-accused with a higher role”.