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The Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted regular bail to an NDPS accused whose first bail plea was dismissed in April 2026. That dismissal was based on a police status report wrongly attributing seven other drug cases to him, three of them ending in conviction. The police later admitted that, apart from the present case, he had only one old conviction and one acquittal.

Justice Sanjay Vashisth noted that departmental proceedings had been started against the two officials responsible. The Court also said it considered it necessary that instructions be circulated across Punjab to police officers handling court matters:

“It is also considered necessary that appropriate instructions be circulated throughout the State to all police officers dealing with matters pending before the Courts, impressing upon them the necessity of properly verifying the antecedents and criminal history of the accused before furnishing any status report or affidavit before the Court, so that such instances of incorrect disclosure of material facts do not happen again.”

The petitioner has been in custody since February 26, 2025, in an FIR registered at Police Station Phillaur, District Jalandhar. The FIR is under Section 22(c) of the NDPS Act and Sections 345(3) and 238(a) of the BNS.

On April 8, 2026, the High Court dismissed his first bail plea. The State's status report had listed seven other FIRs against him under the NDPS Act, registered between 2016 and 2024. It said three of them had ended in conviction and four were pending trial.

In his second bail plea, the petitioner said this information was wrong and that only the present case was pending against him. On October 30, 2026, the Court noted that the custody certificate showed only one earlier case against him, a 2008 NDPS case at Phillaur. In that case, he was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to three months' rigorous imprisonment. His counsel produced copies of the judgments and FIRs in the six cases cited in the earlier bail order, to show that the petitioner was not an accused in any of them.

The next day, the State counsel, on instructions from the SHO, expressed “his serious concern of giving false information in the status report”. He produced records from Central Jail, Kapurthala showing only three cases against the petitioner.

The Court then directed an affidavit stating what action had been taken against the police officials who filed the status report. The status report, it said, had resulted in the dismissal of a bail plea involving the “question of liberty of person”.

A DSP's affidavit dated November 4, 2026, admitted that the correct position was as the Court had noted. It explained that the then Moharrir Head Constable (MHC) of Police Station Phillaur and an ASI “had furnished incorrect information without duly verifying the antecedents of the petitioner”. This happened because of “their failure to properly check and verify the relevant record before filing the status report dated 30.03.2026.”

On the SHO's recommendation, an inquiry under the Punjab Police Rules was started against both officials by an order of the SSP, Jalandhar (Rural), dated November 3, 2026. The Court directed:

“The SSP concerned shall personally ensure that the aforesaid departmental inquiry is concluded and brought to its logical end expeditiously, preferably within a period of six months from today.”

On the merits, the Court noted that 150 tablets of Etizolam were recovered in the case as a whole. From the petitioner himself, 30 tablets of Etizolam weighing 2.7 grams and 49 tablets of Tramadol were allegedly recovered.

It observed, “Petitioner is being prosecuted for an offence involving commercial quantity of Etizolam, solely on the basis that weight of the salt of Etizolam allegedly recovered from him is stated to be 2.7 grams, which exceeds the prescribed threshold of 2.5 grams by merely 0.2 grams.”

The Court noted that the petitioner had been in jail since February 2025, and that only two of the 14 prosecution witnesses had been examined. It said keeping him in jail indefinitely “would serve no useful purpose”.

Considering “the totality of circumstances”, the period of custody, the slow progress of the trial “and, more particularly, the admitted factual position regarding the incorrect information earlier furnished by the State”, the Court granted regular bail. It added a condition that the order would be deemed cancelled if the petitioner is found involved in similar activities in future.

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