Drug vehicles can be released to owner pending trial: Punjab and Haryana HC

The Punjab and Haryana high court has held that the vehicles used for transporting drugs can be released to the owners pending trial.

Answering a reference, the division bench of justice M Jeyapaul and justice Sneh Prashar said that when the vehicles seized in heinous crimes such as rape and murder could be released for interim custody, there was no logic in denying it in the case of drugs. “Neither the state nor the owner is going to benefit by keeping the vehicle in the police station,” the bench observed, adding that it will “only occupy space”.

The bench said it was an open secret that parts were stolen from parked, unattended vehicles and, by the end of the trial, the vehicles kept in open were reduced to scrap. The reference was sent by a single-judge bench after similar benches gave conflicting orders on the issue.

An Amritsar resident had approached the single-judge bench with a plea to release his car from which police had seized 20-gram heroin allegedly. The bench observed that the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act had no provision for debarring the release of the vehicle seized. Confiscation must come only when the owner fails to prove that it was used without his knowledge or connivance.

The NDPS Act mandates the trial court to take a call. “A vehicle seized under the NDPS Act cannot be kept idle to the disadvantage of everyone concerned,” the high court bench said. It also took note of a Supreme Court judgment had made no distinction between the vehicles seized under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CRPC) and the NDPS Act.