P&H High Court Denies Pre-Arrest Bail To Man Accused Of Smuggling Heroin Into Jail

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has refused anticipatory bail to a man accused of trying to smuggle heroin into Central Jail, Amritsar. The heroin was allegedly concealed inside cold cream boxes meant for his brother, an undertrial prisoner there. The Court held that the circumstances of the recovery and the need for custodial interrogation did not justify pre-arrest protection.

Justice Neerja K. Kalson observed, “The infiltration of narcotics into prison premises has the potential not only to compromise institutional security but also to perpetuate the very criminality which the correctional system seeks to address. Its ramifications cannot be regarded as confined to the prison walls, for the consequences of such activities inevitably extend to the wider social order.”

The Court held that such an accusation “warrants scrutiny commensurate with the seriousness of the circumstances in which the offence is stated to have been committed.”

The petitioner sought anticipatory bail under Section 482 of the BNSS in an FIR dated July 29, 2026. The FIR was registered under Sections 21 and 29 of the NDPS Act and Section 42 of the Prisons Act at Police Station Islamabad, Amritsar.

According to the prosecution, the petitioner visited the jail and deposited articles for his brother, undertrial Rajwinder Singh alias Rinka. When jail authorities checked the articles, they found two packets of about 43.95 grams of heroin and about 44.05 grams of tobacco. Both were concealed inside two boxes of Emami cold cream.

The petitioner's counsel argued that he had been falsely implicated and that his name had come up only through the disclosure statement of his co-accused brother. He submitted that the petitioner had simply visited the jail to meet his brother, that jail authorities had checked the articles, and that nothing was recovered from his conscious possession. Without independent corroboration, he argued, a co-accused's disclosure could not be a ground to deny anticipatory bail.

The State opposed the plea. It relied on the co-accused's disclosure statement of July 31, 2026, which attributed to the petitioner the act of bringing the articles. The State argued that custodial interrogation was needed to find out where the heroin came from, how it was concealed, and whether others were involved. It also pointed out that the Special Court, Amritsar had already declined anticipatory bail on September 3, 2026.

The Court accepted that a disclosure statement is not, by itself, substantive evidence of guilt. It held, however, that the question at this stage was different:

“...the question presently arising is not whether the prosecution has conclusively established the petitioner's complicity, but whether the circumstances disclosed during investigation warrant the extraordinary protection of anticipatory bail.”

The Court said the case could not be characterised as resting only on an uncorroborated disclosure. The prosecution had attributed a specific role to the petitioner in bringing and depositing the articles, and jail authorities had made the recovery while checking those articles. The Court added that the fact that the articles had been checked “does not, by itself, resolve the question of the petitioner's knowledge or involvement.”

The Court gave weight to where the offence allegedly took place. It noted that the recovery happened inside a correctional institution, “where access, movement and delivery of articles are subject to regulated procedures.” Investigation therefore had to go beyond the immediate recovery to how the contraband was procured, concealed and meant to be delivered.

On custodial interrogation, the Court relied on State represented by the CBI v. Anil Sharma, (1997) . It reiterated the principle that custodial questioning may be “qualitatively more elicitation-oriented” than questioning a suspect protected by pre-arrest bail. The Court cautioned, however, that custodial interrogation “cannot be permitted merely as a matter of course and must bear a reasonable nexus with the needs of investigation.”

The judger also accepted that the quantity recovered was non-commercial, so the rigours of Section 37 of the NDPS Act did not apply. Even so, it held:

“...the absence of such statutory restrictions does not confer an indefeasible entitlement to anticipatory bail.”

The Court considered the gravity of the accusation, the specific role attributed to the petitioner, the circumstances of the recovery inside the jail, and the stated need for custodial interrogation. On that basis it found no sufficient grounds for anticipatory bail and dismissed the petition. 

Appearance: Mr. Rajiv Kumar Saini, Advocate for the petitioner; Mr. Nitesh Sharma, AAG, Punjab.