Accused in drugs cases cannot insist on default bail, says high court of Bombay at Goa

PANAJI: The high court of Bombay at Goa has held that accused in cases registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act cannot insist on default bail as long as police have filed their report to the court in the stipulated time and even if there is no chemical analysis (CA) or Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report.
“….we hold that the presentation of a police report under Section 173(2) unaccompanied by a CA/FSL report does not amount to any incomplete police report or any incomplete chargesheet/challan even in the absence of an extension of time under Section 36-A(4) of the NDPS Act.Based thereon therefore the accused cannot insist upon a default bail,” Justices Mahesh Sonak and M S Jawalkar stated.

“Similarly, we hold that a police report under Section 173(2) or a chargesheet/challan accompanied by field testing reports as reflected in the panchanama or otherwise also cannot be labelled as an incomplete police report/chargesheet/challan simply because the same was not accompanied by a CA/FSL,” the court further stated.
The court also held that the Drug Law Enforcement Field Officers’ Handbook issued by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) “has no legal efficacy, in the sense that the handbook has no statutory flavour or the handbook is not a set of executive instructions issued by the central government...”
However, while stating that the handbook in the context of the ‘drug detection kit’ in fact states that these kits assist the investigating officer (IOs) in forming a reasonable belief about a substance being a drug, the court held that “...it is essential that the IOs conduct the test, match the resultant colour, and form a reasonable belief that a substance gives a positive colour pattern for a drug. The handbook itself makes it clear that this process must be recorded in the panchanama. The handbook also states that the tests are only indicative and it is possible that a designated laboratory may return a negative report. But this is far cry from suggesting that the handbook castigates the field testing reports as totally unreliable”.