NDPS Act Is A Prohibitive Legislation: Delhi High Court Refuses To Grant Bail To Accused Persons Allegedly Dealing Illegally In Buprenorphine Through De-Addiction Centers

The High Court was considering the applications filed by the accused Manoj Kumar seeking regular bail and the remaining accused persons, namely Amit Khanna, Satvinder Kaur and Tajinder Kaur, seeking anticipatory bail in a case filed under Sections 22,25 & 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (Act).

The Single Bench of Justice Girish Kathpalia said, “It clearly shows the tightly regulated permissibility of use of Buprenorphine. There is nothing to show that the deaddiction centers run by the accused/applicants are the designated centers set up by the Government of India or the same form part of any hospital or are psychiatric clinics. There is also nothing to show that Buprenorphine was being purchased/stored/sold by either or both of the two doctors allegedly employed by the deaddiction centers of the accused/applicants.”

While considering one of the arguments of the accused persons, the Bench said, “The strength of this argument has to be tested keeping in mind the overall scheme of the Act, which is a prohibitive legislation.”

Advocate Puneet Budhiraja represented the Petitioners, while APP Laksh Khanna represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The incident dates back to the year 2014 when police officials apprehended a person with a box which had Buprenorphine Injection MI LEEGESIC written on it, and he also had glass bottles called Pheniramine Maleate Injection IP Avil with him. The apprehended person disclosed his name as Abu Talib. The police were informed that one Vikrant purchased the contraband from Manoj @ Babu, Raja Shehzad and Satya Prakash Tiwari. During further investigation, Vikrant led the police team to Humanity Welfare De-addiction Centre in Burari, where they came to know that its Manager, Manoj, had already left for home. The IO raided the Centre during which records maintained by the staff, 46700 tablets of Buprenorphine were recovered and seized.

As per the seized records, accused Manoj collected a huge amount of money and paid the same to accused Amit Khanna, one of the trustees of the Trust, which ran the de-addiction centre. The accused Amit Khanna was allegedly the mastermind, who, being custodian of the entire stock, used to get profits from the illegal sale of the contraband. The accused Amit Khanna disclosed during interrogation that through Humanity Welfare Trust, he runs 4 de-addiction centers, out of which 2 are in the name of his wife, accused Satvinder Kaur. As regards the accused Tajinder Kaur, the investigation revealed that she is working in one of the said deaddiction centers owned by the accused Satvinder Kaur and that she sold the contraband to the accused Satya Prakash Tiwari.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that this was a case of the accused/applicants being found in possession of a commercial quantity of Buprenorphine under the garb of de-addiction Centers. The accused/applicants were found to have fudged their records to show the supply/sale of Buprenorphine to fictitious persons. The accused/applicants were found engaged in the sale of Buprenorphine at double rates, to earn profits to the tune of 300% under the garb of de-addiction.

It was noticed that the 38th Subject Experts Committee (Neurology & Psychiatry) recommended “modification” of the earlier restriction to the effect that the substance should be allowed to be supplied to psychiatric clinics and hospitals also instead of the earlier condition that the same should be supplied to deaddiction centers only.

The Bench found that the accused Manoj was connected with each of the remaining accused/applicants and was the link between consumers and peddlers. Further, accused Manoj was involved in destroying the trail of evidence by erasing Batch Numbers from packaging and he enlisted fictitious persons as medically prescribed patients/consumers of Buprenorphine, even during the period when he was in jail. The apprehension of prosecution that if released on bail, accused Manoj would likely destroy evidence, was found not to be baseless.

Coming to the role of Amit Khanna, the Bench said, “It is accused Amit Khanna only, who was in direct contact with the owners of the Buprenorphine supplier Rusan Pharma. It is he only, who appointed accused Manoj and forged signatures of purchasers of Buprenorphine. Claiming that he is the mastermind, investigators express need for access to accused Amit Khanna for custodial interrogation.”

Accused Satvinder Kaur was actively running the deaddiction centers, and engaged in illegal purchase/storage and sale of Buprenorphine. The role ascribed to accused Tajinder Kaur was similar to that of accused/applicant Manoj. In her capacity as an active worker of the deaddiction centres, she was connected with all the remaining accused persons, including Pawan, Vikrant, Sonu and Satya Prakash Tiwari.

“In nutshell, the vital circumstances in these cases are: the enormity of intricate web dealing illegally in Buprenorphine; status of investigation being ongoing; recovery of commercial quantity of the contraband from the accused/applicants; two of the accused/ applicants facing action under Section 82 CrPC; requirement of custodial investigation of the accused/applicants, as expressed by the investigators; and absence of any reasonable ground, which could satisfy this court into believing that the accused/applicants are not guilty of the offences alleged against them and/or they are not likely to commit an offence if released on bail”, it said.

Thus, the Bench dismissed all the applications.

Cause Title: Amit Khanna v. State NCT of Delhi (Neutral Citation: 2025:DHC:5296)

Appearance

Petitioner: Advocates Puneet Budhiraja, Varun Agarwal

Respondent: APP Laksh Khanna, SI Prashant Kumar

Click here to read/download Order