A special court under the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act in Mumbai denied granting bail to an accused who made a serious allegation of fabrication of evidence against the former Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede.
NCB officials had seized 1.32gm of LSD, 22gm of Ganja & one dab of cannabis from the accused Zaid Rana’s house in Mumbai. Rana had filed a bail application after the NCB filed a charge sheet against Rana & 3 others.
Advocate Ashok Saraogi, who was representing the accused, said to the court that the accused lives in a flat adjacent to the flat owned by Sameer Wankhede, & the officer had given out his flat on rent. The bail plea claimed that since there were differences between Wankhede’s tenants & Rana’s parents, Wankhede had raided his residence. The plea elaborated further that the charge sheet filed by the NCB had “ignored” the presence of Wankhede & nowhere was it even mentioned that he was in the premises. As per the bail petition, this was “done only because if at all any recovery is alleged to have been made either from the scooter or from the drawer of Rana, the same has been planted by Wankhede.”
Advocate Advait Sethna, appearing for the central agency, however, opposed the bail plea stating that the accused is involved in trafficking, financing, procuring, supply, distribution, and sale of the seized contraband held in commercial quantities. It was further contended that this demonstrates that the accused is regularly dealing with contraband and considering the factum of funding under Section 27A, the rigors of Section 37 (makes bailable offenses non-bailable) would be applicable here.
Special Judge Abhay Joglekar, after hearing arguments from both sides, said that the charge sheet categorically states telephonic conversations between Rana with a co-accused in the case who was found with a commercial quantity of the drug. The judge also said that while deciding a bail application, it is settled that the court is required to see whether the prima-facie case exists or not.
