Delayed or non-compliance with Section 52-A alone does not justify bail in commercial-quantity NDPS cases.

On 28 September 2023, during police nakabandi at Police Station Nohar, a black Scorpio and a silver Innova allegedly attempted to evade the blockade.

The occupants were apprehended and searches resulted in the recovery of 80 kg of poppy husk from the Scorpio occupied by Bhawani Singh and Shankar Singh, and 67 kg from the Innova occupied by Biram Singh and co-accused Jagat Singh.

FIR No. 450/2023 was registered for offences under Sections 8/15 of the NDPS Act.

Charges were framed and the trial commenced; by 7 April 2026, four of 21 prosecution witnesses had been examined.

The applicants sought bail under Section 483 of the BNSS, primarily relying on alleged non-compliance with Section 52-A of the NDPS Act, including delay between seizure, Magistrate verification of samples and forwarding of samples to the FSL.

The samples were drawn on 28 September 2023, verified by the Magistrate on 9 October 2023 and sent to the FSL on 20 November 2023, involving an alleged delay of approximately 41 days.

The applicants also relied on the grant of bail to co-accused Jagat Singh by a Coordinate Bench on 18 June 2026 and on their prolonged incarceration of approximately two and a half years.

The State opposed bail on the ground that the recovery was of commercial quantity and that the twin conditions under Section 37 of the NDPS Act were not satisfied.

1. Whether the alleged delay in Magistrate verification and forwarding of samples to the FSL constituted non-compliance with Section 52-A of the NDPS Act sufficient to justify bail or otherwise undermine the prosecution case?

2. Whether the bail granted to co-accused Jagat Singh required the applicants to be granted bail on the ground of parity?

3. Whether the applicants were entitled to bail on the ground of prolonged incarceration and the right to speedy trial, despite the statutory embargo under Section 37 of the NDPS Act?

4. Whether the applicants had satisfied the twin conditions under Section 37(1)(b)(ii) of the NDPS Act, namely, reasonable grounds for believing that they were not guilty and that they were unlikely to commit an offence while on bail?

The Court applied Section 483 of the BNSS governing the High Court’s power to grant bail, and Sections 8/15 of the NDPS Act concerning the alleged possession and transportation of poppy husk.

Since the alleged recovery was of commercial quantity, Section 37 of the NDPS Act imposed a mandatory embargo requiring satisfaction of the twin conditions before bail could be granted.

Sections 35 and 54 of the NDPS Act permitted statutory presumptions relating to culpable mental state and possession, subject to rebuttal.

Relying on Narcotics Control Bureau v. Kashif, 2024 (11) SCC 372, and Bharat Aambale v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2025 (8) SCC 452, the Court held that Section 52-A and the applicable sampling procedures required substantial compliance, but delayed or imperfect compliance would not, by itself, vitiate the trial or entitle an accused to bail; the effect of any lapse depended on whether it created discrepancies in the physical evidence or caused prejudice.

The Court further held, relying on Orissa State Financial Corporation v. Vigyan Chemical Industries, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1609, and Rattiram v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2012) 4 SCC 516, that a decision rendered in ignorance of relevant statutory provisions or binding Supreme Court precedent may be treated as sub silentio.

The Court further held, relying on Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan, (2005) 2 SCC 42, for the principle that bail orders turn on the facts of each case and do not automatically establish parity.

The Court further relied on Union of India v. Vigin K. Varghese, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2440, Union of India v. Namdeo Ashruba Nakade, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 3049, State of Punjab v. Balraj Singh @ Billa, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 1058, and State of Punjab v. Sukhvinder Singh @ Gora, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 671, for the proposition that prolonged incarceration or speedy-trial considerations cannot override Section 37 without a finding satisfying its twin conditions.

The Court also noted that Standing Order No. 1/88 had been repealed by Rule 29 of the NDPS (Seizure, Storage, Sampling and Disposal) Rules, 2022.

The Court found that the applicants did not dispute the recovery or sampling itself and relied only on the alleged 41-day delay.

Applying Kashif and Bharat Aambale, it held that delay in Magistrate verification or transmission of samples to the FSL did not automatically invalidate the prosecution, particularly when there was no allegation that the samples had been tampered with or were not intact; any resulting prejudice or evidentiary discrepancy was a matter for trial.

The Court rejected parity with Jagat Singh because the earlier bail order relied on repealed Standing Order No. 1/88 and had not considered the later Supreme Court decisions governing Section 52-A; it was therefore treated as sub silentio and, in any event, as a fact-specific bail order rather than a binding precedent.

Finally, although the applicants had remained in custody for about two and a half years, the trial had commenced and was progressing, with four witnesses examined.

Given the commercial quantity allegedly recovered from the applicants’ vehicles, the Court held that the Section 37 embargo applied and that the applicants had not shown reasonable grounds to believe that they were not guilty or that they would not commit an offence while on bail.

The presumptions under Sections 35 and 54 consequently remained unrebutted.

The alleged delay in compliance with Section 52-A did not independently justify bail; the earlier bail granted to the co-accused did not create a right to parity; and prolonged incarceration or the right to speedy trial could not, on the facts, overcome the mandatory requirements of Section 37 of the NDPS Act.

The three bail applications were accordingly dismissed.

However, the Trial Court was directed to expedite the trial proceedings.