New Delhi: The Supreme Court has set aside an order of the Allahabad High Court, directing the Director of Narcotics Control Bureau to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to a man for alleged wrongful confinement.
The apex court, while setting aside the order, remarked that "time and again, the act of courts overstepping the bounds of jurisdiction, has clearly been frowned upon", and added, “the instant case is another such example”.
A bench comprising justices Sanjay Karol and Manmohan said: “We accept the submission of the Union of India that grant of compensation to the tune of Rs 5,00,000/- was without the authority of law. The order of the high court, therefore, to this extent has to be set aside”.
The bench said it does not approve of the high court using its bail jurisdiction under Section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code to grant compensation to a man for wrongful confinement. The bench said the undue restriction of liberty without the backing of procedures established by law is "unquestionably an affront to a person’s rights, but the avenues to seek recourse of law in connection therewith are limited to remedies as per law".
The bench noted that it is undisputed that the application for bail filed before the high court had become infructuous since the district court had already released the respondent herein.
“The straightforward course of action that ought to have been adopted, therefore, was that the bail application would have been dismissed as such. No occasion arose for the court to pass an order delving into the aspects of impermissibility of retesting and/or wrongful confinement”, said the bench, in a judgment delivered on February 28.
The bench stressed that not only was the same outside the bounds, but it is erroneous on a further count that since the application was infructuous, the exercise of jurisdiction was entirely unjustified and contrary to law. “Time and again, the act of courts overstepping the bounds of jurisdiction has clearly been frowned upon. The instant case is another such example”, said Justice Karol, who authored the judgment on behalf of the bench.
The bench said it is a settled principle of law that the jurisdiction conferred upon a court under Section 439 CrPC is limited to the grant or refusal of bail pending trial. “In the following decisions, this court has time and again held that the sphere of consideration, when exercising power under this Section, pertains only to securing or restricting liberty of the person in question”, said the bench.
On May 22, 2024, the high court directed the Director, Narcotics Control Bureau, to pay Rs 5 Lakh to a man who had been wrongfully confined for four months despite the initial laboratory findings establishing that the sample of seized material was negative for any banned substance under the NDPS Act.
The man was arrested upon seizure of 1280 grams of brown powder, alleged to be heroin. It led to the filing of an FIR in January 2023. The second laboratory report also confirmed that no banned substance was present in the seized material. The district court ordered the release of Man Singh Verma in April 2023 after considering the closure report filed by the NCB.
The central government moved the apex court challenging the high court order. The central government contended that the man was released from the prison, but the high court continued to examine the case and ordered the compensation, which was beyond its jurisdiction.
The government said the officers of NCB acted in a bonafide manner on credible intelligence and initial test results. “Section 69 of the NDPS Act offers protection to officers for acts done in good faith, thus prohibiting prosecution as well as imposition of fine without proof of malafides”, it submitted.
However, the amicus curiae submitted before the bench that re-testing of the second sample was impermissible and illegal, and it resulted in an unjustified extension of Verma's custody. The amicus urged that the principle of awarding compensatory relief for the violation of fundamental rights by public officials as recognized in Rudal Sah v. State of Bihar, Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa, and D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal– all adjudicated under Article 32 of the Constitution, should be extended to bail proceedings under Section 439 CrPC. The amicus said that protection under Section 69 NDPS Act to the authorities is not absolute, and the re-testing of the second sample was done due to malice.
Regarding the judgments cited by the amicus, Justice Karo said: “These judgments were rendered by this Court under Article 32 jurisdiction, which is a remedy available to any person whose fundamental rights have been violated. So, whereas the court has indeed held permissibility of grant of compensation, it has done so in the context of violation of fundamental rights”.
