The court of law must be satisfied with the reasonable grounds to punish a person under of the NDPS Act.

Lahari Gurrala | Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad | 31st January 2020

SUJIT TIWARI  vs STATE OF GUJARAT & ANR.  CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1897 OF 2019

Facts of the Case:

• The Indian Coast Guard received some intelligence inputs with regard to suspicious activities of a ship MV Hennry. Therefore, the Indian Coast Guard took their own ship and intercepted the vessel on 29.07.2017. The intercepted vessel MV Hennry was flying a flag of Panama. The Master of the ship was one Suprit Tiwari, and there were 7 other crew members, all Indian nationals. The Master and the crew members were not in possession of any licence, permit and could not even produce any document pertaining to departure from last port of call i.e. Abu Dhabi in U.A.E. or for the next port of call, i.e., Bhavnagar in Gujarat. 
• It is alleged that the Master Suprit Tiwari when questioned admitted that they were carrying contraband substance in the nature of narcotics in the ship. He identified the locations and approximately 1445 kg of narcotics substance in 1526 packets was recovered. 
• Information in this regard was given to the Narcotics Control Bureau, Ahmedabad (for short ‘NCB’). The NCB carried out investigation and after completing some investigation, filed a complaint before the Special Judge, NDPS Court at Porbandar in Gujarat on 22.12.2017 against the Master and the 7 crew members and 5 other persons including the appellant Sujit Tiwari, who is the brother of the Master of the ship Suprit Tiwari. 
• In the complaint it is mentioned that after the Indian Coast Guard informed the NCB, a team of NCB went to Porbandar and once the ship MV Hennry came to the jetty on 31.07.2017, the same was boarded by the officials of the NCB, including the Intelligence Officer. Information was collected by the officials of the Indian Coast Guard and the Intelligence Officer opened one of the packets and found that it contained a substance which was a light brownish powder which on testing gave positive result for heroin. 
• According to Suprit Tiwari he was working for an Iranian National Sayed Ali Moniri (Seyed Mahmoud) and it was Sayed Ali Moniri who purchased the heroin and got the cavities made in the ship. Apart from that, 4 Iranians accompanied them on the ship and they started for Sharjah and reached Dubai the next day, instead of  going towards Egypt, as directed by their boss, Suprit Tiwari and crew members decided to bring the ship to India and changed the name of their vessel from Prince­II to MV Hennry. 
• Suprit Tiwari and crew members after landing in India decided to sell all the drugs and get the ship dismantled as soon as the drugs got delivered who assured them to buy the entire consignment. 
• The Master and crew members destroyed the Automatic Identification System (AIS) of the ship so that it could not be traced by the owner or any other person. In his voluntary statement, Suprit Tiwari revealed that he had informed his brother Sujit Tiwari about some illegal activity in which he was to make a huge amount of money and he also told Sujit that he would get Rs.50 crores through hawala. 

Issue:

• Whether the appellant(Sujit Tiwari) is entitled to get bail, upon being aware of the fact that his brother was indulging in some illegal activity where he was also present at the time of that activity?

Held:

• It was held that it cannot be said with certainty whether the appellant was aware that drugs were being smuggled on the ship or not though the allegation is that he made such a statement to the NCB under Section 67 of the NDPS Act.
• It was stated that appellant herein is totally different from the other accused reasonable possibility is there that he may be acquitted. He has been behind bars since his arrest on 04.08.2017 i.e. for more than 2 years and he is a young man aged about 25 years. 
• He is a B.Tech Graduate. Therefore, under facts and circumstances of this case it was held that this is a fit case where the appellant is entitled to bail because there is a possibility that he was unaware of the illegal activities of his brother and the other crew members. 
• However, some stringent conditions will be imposed upon the appellant and the court directed the appellant Sujit Tiwari be released on bail upon furnishing a bail bond in the sum of Rs. 10,00,000/- with two sureties of the like amount to the satisfaction of the Special Judge, NDPS court at Porbandar on few conditions. If the appellant violates any of the conditions the NCB shall be entitled to straightaway apply to the Special Judge for cancellation of his bail. 
• The appeal is disposed of on the aforesaid terms. Pending application(s), if any, stand(s) disposed of.