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2018 (7) TMI 2344 - JAMMU AND KASHMIR HIGH COURTSeeking grant of bail (successive bail application) - Smuggling - recovery of poppy straw - contraband substances or not - offences under Section 15/18 NDPS Act - whether a successive application for bail will or will not lie before this court? - HELD THAT:- The law evolved on the subject is that the jurisdiction of the Sessions Court and the High Court to consider an application for the grant of bail is concurrent. If the Sessions Court has rejected an application for bail, the High Court can consider the prayer afresh particularly when the order of the rejection of the bail is bad and perverse on the face of it. What gets revealed from the order of the trial court is that the quantity of the contraband recovered from the possession of the accused does not fall within the parameters of commercial quantity but it is an intermediary one and, therefore, the application of the applicants had to be considered under the provisions of 497 Cr. PC. It is only on the application of the rigor of Section 37 of NDPS Act to a given case that bail can be withheld. In any case which does not fall within the purview, scope and definition of Section 37 of the NDPS Act, grant of bail has to be considered on the agility and celerity of Section 497 Cr. PC. Therefore, a realistic view and a pragmatic approach has to be taken in such a case. The settled position of law as evolved by the Supreme Court in a catena of judicial dictums on the subject governing the grant of bail is that there is no strait jacket formula or settled rules for the use of discretion but at the time of deciding the question of “bail or jail” in non-bailable offences. Court has to utilize its judicial discretion, not only that as per the settled law, the discretion to grant bail in cases of non-bailable offences has to be exercised according to rules and principle as laid down by the Code and various judicial decisions. In bail applications, generally, it has been laid down from the earliest times that the object of bail is to secure the appearance of the accused person at his trial by reasonable amount of bail. The object of bail is neither punitive nor preventative. There appears to be no reasonable ground for declining bail to the applicants. The maxim of the law of bails which has its application to the case on hand where the quantity of narcotics recovered from the applicants falls within the scales of an intermediary quantity, for which the punishment provided is upto 10 years and a fine of rupees one lac is “bail and not jail”. The applicants are admitted to bail, in case they furnish a personal bond to the tune of Rs. 50,000/- each with a surety of the like amount each to the satisfaction of the learned Court below on the terms and conditions fulfilled - bail application allowed.
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