Elucidating that the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act cases should always be dealt with stricter approach of ‘No Tolerance’, the Orissa High Court on Thursday “painstakingly” deviated from this approach and granted bail to an accused arrested under the NDPS Act for the only reason that the co-accused in the case had been enlarged on bail by the court earlier.
“On the basis of doctrine of parity, wherein a co-accused, who was charged in similar offences, has been granted bail by the court, the other co-accused shall also be entitled to bail,” said Justice SK Panigrahi while allowing the bail application of one Bikash Duria of Balangir district, who was arrested under Section 21(c) and 29 of NDPS Act.
Bikash was arrested by the police in January this year along with four others for transporting 5,960 bottles of cough syrup, which together contained 1.184 kg of Codeine Phosphate. Codeine is placed under Schedule H of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, which is considered to be extremely harmful and addictive to the human body.
Bikash was allegedly transporting the drugs under the guise of medicinal products. He also failed to produce any invoice, license or authority in support of possession of such a large quantity of cough syrup bottles. He had also confessed before the police of not carrying any drug license and the cough syrups were sold to different customers for the purpose of intoxication, which leads to apparent fillip in the drug trade.